O.C. District’s Bilingual Waiver Now Permanent

The state’s top education panel handed an Orange County school district a permanent pass out of bilingual education in a decision Wednesday that marked a significant loosening of rules for teaching students who aren’t fluent in English.

The state Board of Education’s 6-0 decision to grant the Westminster School District an ongoing renewal of its bilingual education waiver set what observers called an important precedent for an arcane area of regulation that affects 1.4 million students in the state who speak, read and write limited English.

It was the first time a school district had won a permanent bilingual education waiver under a 1995 policy by the state board that acknowledged the validity of alternative teaching methods.

Trish Cannady, a spokeswoman for the district, said Westminster officials “are ecstatic. For us, the issue has always been about providing the best education possible for the children of our district. We think we’ve demonstrated that we have an excellent program in place.”

The state board’s action overrode a recommendation from the Department of Education--which is separate from the board--to grant the district only a two-year renewal of a temporary waiver it has held since 1996.

The Westminster district is not the first in California to reject bilingual education altogether or win some sort of waiver. Many schools offer limited-English speaking students no bilingual classes, in part because of a severe shortage of bilingual teachers. Others in past years have been given permission to try alternative, English-intensive or English-only teaching programs.

But the Westminster petition, and the debate it generated, came after one of the most extensive discussions to date of bilingual education waivers by the state’s highest education policy-making panel.

It also came amid growing public debate about the education of linguistic-minority students. An anti-bilingual education initiative, championed by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Ron Unz and Orange County teacher Gloria Matta Tuchman, has qualified for a statewide vote in June. It seeks to impose all-English teaching in most public schools.

The Westminster district, which has large numbers of Vietnamese- and Spanish-speaking children among its 9,500 students, had won a temporary waiver in February 1996. Wednesday’s action extended that waiver permanently, provided that the district submits periodic progress reports.

The ruling means that the Westminster district, which serves students from kindergarten through eighth grade, will continue to use English-only instruction, with help from bilingual teaching aides, instead of native-language instruction.

Bill Lucia, a spokesman for the state board, said officials will monitor the district closely and warned that the exemption did not mean a “cakewalk.”

“The board said, ‘Go ahead, let’s give it a try,’ ” Lucia said. “And if things substantially change for the worse, they’re going to call [the waiver] back in.”

The action came despite a finding from the state Department of Education that the results of Westminster’s two-year trial were mixed. The district failed to meet its own benchmark for moving students into English fluency. It had sought an annual transition rate of 7.7%, but its rate in 1996-97 was 4.2%. The statewide average was 6.7%.

However, district officials say their English fluency-conversion rate is rising this year. They also point to test data showing that limited-English students were doing as well as or better than expected in reading, language and math.

Supporters of bilingual education seized on the Westminster case Wednesday as grist for their campaign to defeat the Unz-Matta Tuchman initiative.

“It’s Unz in action, and their results have been pretty lackluster,” said Kelly Hayes-Raitt, a spokeswoman for the group fighting the initiative.

Three other Orange County districts also hold temporary bilingual education waivers.