Grayson Opts To Teach In English, Spanish

Ellen Chrismer

WESTLEY—Grayson Charter School demonstrates with bold letters and colors its commitment to preserving the heritage of its Hispanic students.

“Bienvenidos a Escuela Grayson” (“Welcome to Grayson School”) reads the sign on the school’s main entrance.

Mexican shawls and art posters decorate the elementary school office. And each day as students and teachers walk across campus, they pass a mural of Mexican painter Diego Rivera’s “Dia de las Flores” (Flower Day), painted by sixth-grade students and kindergarten teacher Glenda Barreto.

These emblems of Hispanic heritage, which is shared by approximately 266 of Grayson’s 276 students, have been at the school for years. But during the first month of the 1998-99 school year, the school was forced by Proposition 227 to abandon bilingual education, which moved children from speaking Spanish to speaking English, while still supporting their heritage.

This year, Grayson became a charter school specializing in bilingual Spanish and English instruction — a teaching strategy no longer allowed in most California public schools.

According to the state Department of Education, only six other charter schools in California share Grayson’s mission.

Charter schools are public schools that receive district and state board of education approval to design their own curriculum and not follow state education laws.

As a charter school, Grayson has ensured that it can continue its bilingual program for as long as the West Side community wants it, without requiring parents to sign waivers each year.

During its month without bilingual education, Grayson teachers taught in English — regardless of students’ ability to understand.

“It was a really stressful first month of school,” said Principal Mary Parker. “(The students) were totally lost. We had more crying children than we ever had at the beginning of the school year.”

Eventually, classes got back on track. Nearly every parent with Spanish-speaking children applied for waivers, which reinstated bilingual classes.

A group of Grayson parents and teachers developed a charter school proposal soon after the beginning of the last school year.

“We saw something that was working. We didn’t want to stop it,” said fifth- and sixth-grade teacher Sandra Garcia. “We wanted to work on it and perfect it.”

Under the program, Spanish-speaking students are taught mostly in their native language in kindergarten, first and second grade. Starting in third grade, Grayson teachers begin to emphasize English with students who read Spanish at grade level.

Grayson teachers still are developing part of their charter plan to teach Spanish to English-speaking students.

When school opened in August, with its bilingual program back in place, the first days went much more smoothly, said Barreto.

“We started right in without messing around with speaking in English to children who didn’t understand,” she said. “It simplifies the whole training period, when we teach school rules. They knew what I was talking about.”

Teachers are now brainstorming techniques to teach students English and to prepare them for school, district and state tests measuring language proficiency.

Third-grade teacher Lorena Vega is one of those introducing English.

“(Students) are excited. I explain to them how the information that they know in Spanish transfers to English,” she said. “They come to me, and say, ‘Oh, this (English) word is in Spanish.'”

By spring, Vega expects 11 of her 13 students to be ready to spend the majority of their time learning in English. Struggling students learn English more slowly, but by fifth and sixth grade, nearly all teaching of core subjects is done in English.

Fifth- and sixth-grade teacher Garcia also makes sure her students don’t lose their Spanish. Earlier in the school year she worked on improving her students’ vocabulary in both languages by reading aloud C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” one chapter in English, the next in Spanish.

Fifth-grader Vincent Benavidez said he knows what Garcia is trying to do — prepare him for his future.

“It’s good when you get a job, you know how to talk both (in English and Spanish),” he said. “If you are a cashier, and there’s a Spanish-speaking customer, and you can’t speak Spanish, that’s bad.”

Patterson City Councilwoman Becky Campo agrees. She enrolled her son Josh, a kindergartner, at Grayson through an intradistrict transfer.

She chose Grayson because of the school’s small size — and its approach to educating students. Campo, who is bilingual, had worried that her son was losing his Spanish. Before entering Grayson, he attended preschool with English speakers.

Now, he’s picking up Spanish from his teachers and from friends on the playground, while also doing well in English.

Campo, a parent member of the school’s governing council, is learning about the autonomy a charter school can enjoy.

Ultimately, at least for Grayson, Prop. 227 may have been a good thing, she said. “The school can give instruction in English and Spanish.”



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