School District Gets Permanent Bilingual Education Waiver

The state’s top education panel handed an Orange County school district a permanent waiver from providing 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 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.

The 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, which has large numbers of Vietnamese- and Spanish-speaking children among its 9,500 students, 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 shortage of bilingual teachers.

The Westminster petition came amid growing public debate about bilingual education. An anti-bilingual education initiative championed by businessman Ron K. Unz has qualified for a statewide vote.