Schools to get Prop. 227 guides

Oxnard district trustees will consider saying instruction levels must be 75% to 80% in English

It’s a debatable number.

As school officials prepared to implement Proposition 227 this year, they looked for some numerical definition of what it means to teach a class “overwhelmingly” in English as the initiative requires. Some jokingly asked whether it could be as low as 61 percent, the margin by which the measure passed in June. Would it be nearly everything? Or was there some middle ground?

After consulting with their lawyers, officials of the Oxnard School District have concluded that instruction of limited-English speakers should be at least 75 percent to 80 percent in English. The school board will consider that range tonight in the interim guidelines to be used by teachers.

But a spokeswoman for English for the Children, writers of the initiative, says the district is missing the point. Spokeswoman Sheri Annis said the phrase “overwhelmingly in English” applies to regular classrooms and not sheltered classes to teach children English.

Classes for students who are learning English should be taught so that nearly all instruction is in English, she said.

“We really don’t play the game of what percentage do you use because sheltered English immersion methodology means you use as much of the language as possible so the child is exposed to as much English as possible,” she said. “The native language would only be used for clarification, not instruction.”

That is what teachers are doing, said Stephanie Purdy, manager of English language development programs for the Oxnard School District.

“What I am telling teachers is you plan the lesson so the major presentation of the lesson is in English, with the realization that if the kids are getting lost, you can certainly do some clarification in Spanish,” Purdy said.

Purdy said the law firm of Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo in Cerritos reviewed the guidelines and deemed them reasonable.

“I know teachers are going to be uncomfortable without some parameters,” she said.

Board President Arthur Joe Lopez said the board is considering the issue in the absence of definitive state guidelines. Other districts in California face the same dilemma, he said.

“The state never provided any particular definition,” he said. “We’re doing the best we can.”

Other districts in the county either have or are in the process of developing guidelines, but Oxnard could be a key test because half of its 15,000 students have limited English skills, the largest number in the county.

In the classroom, Kamala School first-grade teacher Carmen Torres said she finds it difficult to use the numerical standard.

“All day long you’re thinking, ‘How much Spanish have I used?’ ” she said. “It’s very hard to use that number because all day long you’re counting.”



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