Latino parents ended their weeklong boycott of a downtown Los Angeles school Wednesday after delivering letters to the principal demanding that 117 children be removed from bilingual education by next fall and placed in English-only classrooms.

Community activist Alice Callaghan, who organized the protest, said the parents are counting on Ninth Street School’s principal to fulfill her promises to provide such a program.

“Our assumption is that the principal will do what she says,” Callaghan said.

However, Principal Eleanor Vargas Page responded later Wednesday that she may not be able to completely satisfy the parents.

During a meeting last week at Callaghan’s skid row community center, Vargas Page promised to open the school’s existing English Language Development Program to the child of any parent who asked for it individually.

But that program — common throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District — includes some native-language translation, which the protesting parents do not want.



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