Bilingual Education Boosted
In the season of legislative wish lists, community members and school staff committed to bilingual education in the Santa Fe Public Schools made a plea this week for more support. The single most important need is for a full-time bilingual education director, according to the district's bilingual advisory council, a group of educators and community members. Now the district's program is run by a part-time director. Other area school districts such as Espanola and Pecos have full-time bilingual directors and larger staffs despite smaller student bodies, group members said at Tuesday's school board meeting. This disparity, some members of the council said at the meeting, shows the Santa Fe school district undervalues the cultures and languages of students, which may contribute to the district's high dropout rate. Bilingual advisory council member Roberto Mondragon, though, said he believes the school board is doing its best with a drum-tight budget. This year, program director Rick Gutierrez was asked to oversee several programs, which leaves one-fourth of his energy for bilingual education. The program also is down to one bilingual resource specialist, a person who helps schools develop bilingual and language immersion classes, from three last year. Pressure from district employees, especially teachers, for better wages translated into those cuts and others in other programs. "We had tremendous pressure to cut anyone who is not in the classroom," Superintendent Veronica C. Garcia said at the meeting. By cutting the number of resource specialists, the district was able to offer bigger incentives to lure and keep hard-to-find bilingual teachers, she said. Gutierrez said the superintendent has supported bilingual education. "The support is there," he said. But bilingual resource specialist Polly Beckmon Zazueta said the school district urgently needs to decide the purpose of bilingual education in the district and select a menu of the best programs to achieve it. "What is the purpose of bilingual education in Santa Fe Public Schools? Is it to teach English to immigrants? Or to help recuperate heritage languages? Or to comply with state statutes?" Rather than thinking the district's program is in trouble, Beckmon Zazueta said she prefers to think of Santa Fe as sitting on a gold mine. "We would like to see bilingual education opened up for all students," she said. Associate Superintendent Gloria Rendon said she can remember when some of the schools in the district did not have a bilingual program and the district gave no money to schools for bilingual education. "We're making steady progress," she said. Still, the programs in 26 of the district's 30 schools range from language immersion programs where students operate mostly in Spanish or German to classes where non-English speakers sit in a row by themselves and receive extra help. At Nava and Sweeney elementary schools, teachers provide a half day of instruction in English and the other half in Spanish. Garcia said she is committed. "One of the goals for Santa Fe Public Schools is that all students graduate bilingual," she said. Although the district cut its grant-writer position when making this year's budget, it has hired a contractor to seek grants for the district who might be able to assist the bilingual program, Garcia said. Board of education member Jimmie Martinez said bilingual education is close to his heart. He recommended the group present its needs to the state Legislature. Bilingual funds Public school students from homes where a language other than English is spoken generate state dollars for school districts. Santa Fe Public Schools received $1.3 million for the 2000-01 school year for its bilingual-education students. Where the money goes: * $700,000, operating budget, salaries of bilingual teachers * $385,000, to school sites * $155,000, stipends to lure bilingual teachers * $91,000, bilingual education office staff * $2,500, training * $2,500, office supplies |