Adding to the Mix
Marice Richter
GRAPEVINE - The growing diversity of the Grapevine-Colleyville school district is nowhere more evident than in Virginia Ortiz's classroom. Ms. Ortiz is a bilingual education teacher at Cannon Elementary School. Her pre-kindergarten through second-grade students struggle not only with the three R's but the English language as well. "Most of these youngsters are new immigrants from Mexico," Ms. Ortiz said. "Spanish is spoken in their homes, and this is their first experience with the English language." This is the inaugural year for bilingual education in the Grapevine-Colleyville school district. State law requires school districts to provide bilingual instruction if at least 20 students in the same primary grade speak only Spanish or some other common language. "Our district has always been very cutting edge about meeting the needs of all students," said Judy Brooks, student support services coordinator for the district. "We could have asked the [Texas Education Agency] for an exception this year, but we chose to go ahead and offer the program." Besides Cannon, Timberline Elementary School also offers a bilingual class. The Timberline program has only kindergartners enrolled this year. Altogether, 44 youngsters are enrolled in bilingual classes at the two schools. Both programs serve Spanish-speaking students. However, the district also offers English-as-a-Second-Language classes for non-English speakers in upper grades or for those students who have some English language skills. ESL classes are offered on all of the district's 17 campuses this year. The demand for the English-language instruction is growing at an astonishing rate, Ms. Brooks said. This year, 420 students are enrolled in ESL classes, up about 100 pupils from the 1999-2000 school year. Non-English-speaking students now account for about 3.5 percent of the district's total enrollment of about 13,600 students. "We have 23 different languages spoken in the district," Ms. Brooks said. "We have a little bit of everything, but Russian, Chinese and Urdu are some of the most common after Spanish." But by far, the largest growth has been in the Spanish-speaking population, officials said. The number of Spanish-speaking youngsters is expected to increase at record rates as more and more immigrants from Mexico and Latin America settle throughout Texas, as demographic trends suggest, officials said. The Grapevine-Colleyville district actually lags behind other area districts, including Hurst-Euless-Bedford and Birdville, which have been offering bilingual education for several years, Ms. Brooks said. "For a long time we've had very little diversity," she said. "Our non-English-speaking population is still low compared with some of our neighbors." The bilingual classes were introduced at Timberline and Cannon because those campuses have the greatest number of Spanish-speaking youngsters, officials said. However, youngsters from other elementary campuses are brought to those campuses to participate in the program. District officials examined the bilingual education programs at several Dallas-Fort Worth area school districts before choosing an approach for their program. The Grapevine-Colleyville program employs the "dual-language" method. "In the beginning of the year, about 90 percent of the instruction is in Spanish and 10 percent in English," Ms. Brooks said. "Those ratios will change as the year progresses and the youngsters become more comfortable with English." The goal is for youngsters to learn to speak English while developing literacy skills in their native language, Ms. Ortiz said. English reading and writing will come later, she said. "If would be too confusing to try to teach them Spanish and English literacy at the same time," Ms. Ortiz said. "By the end of the year, they should be able to read or begin to read in Spanish and speak English." Undoubtedly, some students will stay in bilingual education next year, but others may be ready to transition into ESL, where instruction is in English, Ms. Ortiz said. Although bilingual education students spend most of their day in a classroom separate from English-speaking youngsters, they have opportunities to interact with their counterparts. These youngsters attend art, physical education and music classes with the English speakers. "They are not totally isolated," Ms. Ortiz said. The bilingual classroom is filled with English books and other materials that help build English language skills. The district's Education Foundation purchased about $ 4,000 worth of books and supplies to help bilingual and ESL students, officials said. "They all know about Arthur and Pokmon and all the American cartoon characters," Ms. Ortiz said. "They love all that, and they are very eager to learn more about the American culture and English language." Staff writer Marice Richter can be reached at 817-410-9602, ext. 4962, and at mrichter@dallasnews.com. |