The family room will become the classroom for some Castelar Elementary preschoolers under a federal grant.

The grant is one of two U.S. Department of Education grants recently awarded to the Omaha Public Schools.

Both grants, totaling about $ 431,000 this year, will pay for educating students who don’t speak English as their primary language.

The grants will allow the district to do more for those students and better implement programs already in the works, said Susan Mayberger, the district’s English as a Second Language supervisor.

One of the grants, totaling $ 1.4million over five years, will go to programs supporting bilingual students at Castelar, near 18th and Martha Streets.

OPS already has a federal grant supporting bilingual programs districtwide. The new grant provides money that the schools can use to target programs in one school.

Mayberger said the money will allow the school to hire the new teacher and a bilingual liaison to encourage communication between the school and parents. The district will be able to offer tutoring, Saturday school and enhanced summer programs.

The preschool teacher will go into students’ homes for classes. Saturdays, the children and their parents will come to the school for arts and crafts, literacy programs, field trips and other activities.

The second grant will support a program already running at South High School. The program allows students to take history and math in a bilingual setting.



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