PITTSBURG — Parents of non-English speaking students don’t know which is more frustrating — watching their kids struggle to communicate or dealing with the school district.

In August, many Hispanic parents say they received a Pittsburg School District memo, written in Spanish, that was incorrectly worded. As a result, just six requests for students to remain in bilingual instruction have been turned into the district.

Ruben Rosalez, whose child attends kindergarten at Highlands Elementary School, provided a copy of the improperly worded memo at Wednesday night’s school board meeting.

“The letter says that English will be taught in ‘su idioma,’ which means ‘their language,'” he said. “The parents read this and thought it was business as usual. They thought they didn’t need a waiver for English-immersion classes because children were going to be taught in their primary language.”

Since the June passage of Proposition 227, bilingual programs have been dismantled in favor of English immersion instruction. While the intent of the law is to place students in English sheltered classes, it does allow for a waiver, which enables students struggling in English to retain some type of bilingual instruction. Families must apply for the exemption, however.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Superintendent Robert Newell said the district had just six waiver requests, a shockingly low number considering that Pittsburg has about 1,300 limited English-speaking students.

Rosalez said it was obvious the poorly translated memo affected the number of waiver requests. Newell said he would send out a corrected version as soon as possible.

Parent Ruben Esqueda claimed he hadn’t received the memo, or a waiver of any sort.

“I have requested waivers for my children and have not been provided with any written or verbal communication for an alternative program,” he said.

Other Hispanic parents also spoke out, primarily about the district’s in the long run.

“What I’m hearing from parents time and time again tonight is that their kids can’t speak English,” he said. “How do you expect them to get a job if they don’t know English? All of your children are products of the old bilingual program — the one which didn’t teach your kids how to speak English. Do you really want to go back to that?”

In another matter, Foothill Elementary teacher Marc Sternberger raised concerns that one of the school’s first-grade classrooms violated the state’s 20-1 reduction policy. Sternberger said one class had 26 students, which threatens state funding.

“The district will lose money for the entire school if the class doesn’t get down to the 20-student limit,” he said. ————————————————————————

Tim Tyler covers education in Pittsburg and can be reached at 779-7166 or by e-mail at [email protected]



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