Trustees Hope Immersion Can Receive Waiver
Prompted by last week’s passage of Proposition 227, which essentially eliminates bilingual education programs statewide, Capistrano Unified School District trustees are seeking a waiver to keep a popular language immersion program.
Trustees granted preliminary approval Monday to an exemption request that will be sent to the State Board of Education. Final approval of the proposal is expected to follow a public hearing July 6.
Parent Ellen Gaddie was among those who thanked the board for trying to save the two-way English-Spanish immersion program at Las Palmas Elementary School.
“My son [Andrew, 5] sung a song in Spanish on his second day of school,” Gaddie told board members. “He’s reading in Spanish and correcting his dad and I on our pronunciation and grammar.”
Trustee Peter Espinosa’s motion to amend the district’s proposal and include all bilingual programs in its request for a waiver failed in a 5 to 1 vote.
Board members said they did not want to tie the district’s special language program to general bilingual education.
If the two issues are kept separate, then “maybe the dual immersion program can be seen as outside the intent of the Unz initiative,” Trustee Dorsey Brause said.
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