‘I Don’t Want My Child in a Bilingual Class’

My older daughter was in a bilingual class and did fine. I had no issue, no complaints, she did just beautifully. But Laura, on her very first day of school, started crying and said, “I know I’m not going to understand what’s going on.”

I thought to myself, “There must be a mistake.” I escorted her to another fourth-grade classroom that first day and said, “Sit here, I’ll be right back.” The principal then told me I should not expect my daughter’s class to be changed.

Laura came home that first day and said the teacher was explaining things in English and Spanish and she found it very confusing. She said: “Am I supposed to stop listening when she speaks Spanish? Can I just start my work?”

I tried to make an appointment with the principal and they said she wouldn’t even talk to me until after Sept. 28. So I cornered her on the playground three days later and said, “Please, my daughter is very distraught. She’s crying every night.” She said, “I’m not changing your daughter’s class, period.”

I’ve sat in on the class four times this past month. When I was there, the teacher spoke mostly English, some Spanish. Out of about 30 children, there are approximately 12 who speak English only, four or five who speak Spanish only and the remainder are so-called bilingual children.

I didn’t observe enough of the switching back and forth to say whether it really was confusing. But from my daughter’s point of view, it is. Even though it might not seem a problem to me, I could see where it could be to a child.

Two weeks into school, I took Laura to a therapist. She wasn’t eating, she was crying every day--it was like a kindergartner going through separation.

I checked other schools in my area, asked if they had room for my daughter. One did, but there’s no after-school care there, which is a problem for me. But I was desperate. I asked if I could see the roster of the classroom and they said, “Why do you want to see that?” I said I was wondering what the balance of Spanish surnames and non-Spanish surnames was. The principal said, “You’re really starting to sound like a racist, did you know that?”

The minute I walked out, she called the principal at Mar Vista. My principal threw this up in my face a couple weeks ago. She said a Spanish surname is not indicative of a child who speaks Spanish only. I said, “You know as well as I do that a lot of the children with Spanish surnames at the fourth-grade level here still have Spanish as their comfort language. On the playground, in the classroom, they’re going to surround my kid with Spanish.”

I started making phone calls to Los Angeles Unified school people. A few were shocked when they heard our plight and said the principal couldn’t force our child to be in a bilingual class without our agreement. But Westside cluster leader Carol Dodd (the LAUSD’s top administrator for the Venice-Westchester region) said the principal has the final say in our daughter’s placement. The principal has flexibility to provide (language) balance in the classroom, and that’s the only thing that overrides our power to say no.

Everyone has made it obvious that my daughter’s education is not the issue. Numbers and balance are foremost and not Laura Jones’ welfare.

I’m going to follow up with an attorney. And if the school district is unwilling to assist my child, I may join the campaign to get rid of bilingual education. That was never my intent, since my older child did just fine in a bilingual classroom. I never intended to be anti-bilingual education.