New program would teach lessons in two languages to Danz students

Kelli Barth wishes her daughter, Erica, wasn’t near the tail end of her studies at Green Bay’s Danz Elementary.

“She’s in fifth grade, but I wish she was starting kindergarten or first grade next year,” Barth said on Saturday.

The reason Barth said she and many other parents are hyped about the future is because of plans for a new program at the east-side school.

Danz Elementary School hopes to start a two-way bilingual program in which Spanish-speakers could learn English and English-speakers could learn Spanish in the same classes.

Danz Principal Tom Madden has presented an outline to the Green Bay School Board. The next steps are speaking to parents to gauge their interest, finalizing an action plan and getting School Board approval.

If those three steps go as planned, the optional program would begin in kindergarten and first grade next fall, with additional grades being added each following year.

Barth, a former Parent Teacher Organization president at Danz, said she visited a few schools in Milwaukee over the past year to see how the program works. She came away impressed.

“It’s a great program,” Barth said. “I think these days, being bilingual is so important, whether it’s entering college or getting a job. If you start them younger, the kids are like sponges, they just absorb it up.”

About half of the 435 students at Danz are Hispanic. And 40 percent of the students in the school are in bilingual or ESL programs.

“So many children, they learn English and they forget about Spanish and they lose that communication with their family,” said bilingual teacher Patricia Agee-Aguayo, who supports the new program.

After two years of study and visits to other schools, Danz selected a 50-50 model for two-way bilingual education.

“That means over the course of six days, kids are basically taught 50 percent of their instruction in Spanish and 50 percent is in English,” Madden said.

Classes also would be divided evenly between students whose first language is English and students whose first language is Spanish. The classes would be team-taught by an English-dominant teacher and a bilingual Spanish-dominant teacher.

Assistant Superintendent Daniel Nerad said the system would allow children to learn from each other, moving forward together as they progress through both languages.

Danz has asked for permission to hire an additional Spanish bilingual paraprofessional, or teacher’s assistant, to support the program. At $33,341, this is the only cost administrators now are projecting.

Language arts classes would be delivered in Spanish and English. Content classes, such as science or math, would be given in Spanish three days and in English three days, on a six-day cycle.

The existing bilingual program at Danz is called transitional. Children are taught content classes in their first language while they work to learn English. When they become proficient enough, they move into the English as a Second Language program. Eventually, they work only in English.

The new program would not encompass the whole school. Instead, one large class at each grade – about 30 students – would be in the new bilingual program. Parents would choose whether their children would go into the program.

If too many parents wanted the program for their children, a lottery would be used to fill the class.

School Board members were enthusiastic about the program and informally granted their approval to continue planning. They are expected to take up the program for formal action next spring.

“I’m very glad you’ve gone this route,” School Board President Judy Crain said. “We have a lot to learn along the way, I’m sure, about how this works, but I can’t wait.”



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