A south Oklahoma City school may be the catalyst behind an effort to teach Spanish and English to all of the district’s 36,000 students – if they want to learn.

School Board members have approved a language specialty school designed to teach elementary students the two languages at the same time.

The school will open this fall at Columbus Elementary, 2402 S Pennsylvania Ave. Administrators say the planned school, which will be discussed with interested parents at a meeting this week, will benefit Hispanic students who live in southwest Oklahoma City by giving them intense training in their own language and English at the same time.

But an equally important goal of the school is to provide a Spanish-instruction program where English-speaking youngsters can become bilingual as well.

For kindergarten youngsters this fall, it means equal instruction in both Spanish and English.

Superintendent Betty Mason describes the program as immersion for the youngsters. And for each successive year through fifth grade, those students will continue to get that equal instruction.

“We believe we will have a large body of very proficient students in both English and Spanish when they come out of fifth grade,” she said.

Columbus students in grades one through five this year also will receive increased dual-language training and cultural instruction.

Within six years, the immersion program will be part of all six grades, she said.

Though the board voted to approve the school, it was criticized by Board President Thelma R. Parks and Board Member Leo Hise.

Parks said she was scared that current Columbus students would fill all the slots, leaving no room for other district students.

“I think it’s a good program … but I just have that reservation that it will not be open to all the kids from throughout the district. ” But Assistant Superintendent Guy Sconzo said the demand can be handled and other schools will open for dual-language training if needed.

Sconzo estimated that there will be enough room at Columbus, even with all its students attending, for another 200 students districtwide.

Mason added the district will transport those students to and from the school.

Hise said he has never been impressed with an English program as a second language, because Hispanic students fail to learn it.

“I go out in my community, and I can’t read half the signs,” said Hise.

“I have a real problem with promoting more than one language,” he said. “All of the people who came into this nation and built it, the one thing they had to learn was the English language.

“I think that sometimes we get away from the priority of that responsibility, that people must take upon themselves. ” Mason said the parent meeting will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at Columbus.

All Oklahoma City parents already have been notified of the meeting through the mail, school officials said.



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