Bilingual hiring ban reversed

DISD backs off staffing the earliest grades first

For the second time in a month, the Dallas school district is retreating from a plan to place new bilingual teachers only in the earliest grades.

The school board plans to reverse a 3-week-old freeze Wednesday on hiring bilingual teachers in grades four to six.

The board initially approved the freeze to comply with state rules. The Texas Education Agency says school districts should first staff bilingual pre-kindergarten through third-grade classrooms when there is a bilingual teacher shortage. Dallas is short by 744 bilingual teachers in all elementary grades. More than half are needed for the early grades.

Waldemar “Bill” Rojas, who starts work as the district’s new superintendent in August, said he pushed for the reversal because it didn’t make sense to curtail recruiting at any level when there was a shortage.

“You can’t really give a message that well, we’re recruiting but only some,” Dr. Rojas said. “You’re either recruiting or you’re not.”

Also, he said that not all fourth- through sixth-grade teachers would be good fits in the earlier grades.

“There are many great sixth-grade teachers who aren’t going to make great kindergarten teachers,” Dr. Rojas said. “It’s not that simple, to say a teacher is a teacher is a teacher.”

Board President Roxan Staff said she had been willing to support the first proposal but also could see the wisdom of Dr. Rojas’ recommendation.

“Our goal is to push them into pre-kindergarten through third, but again, we need the teachers,” Ms. Staff said.

Before approving the freeze last month, the school district considered a tougher stance: eliminating $ 3,000 annual stipends for fourth- to sixth-grade teachers with the intention of getting them to transfer to lower grades.

Hispanic parents and members of advisory groups asked Dr. Rojas to get rid of the freeze, said Alfred Carrizales , chairman of the school district’s Latino Advisory Committee.

“Our suggestion was to increase the stipends for the K through three teachers and not to put a freeze on grades four through sixth,” Mr. Carrizales said. “What you’re saying is those kids’ needs are irrelevant. We had a real problem with that.”

District officials said they may consider extra stipends at some point.

Mr. Carrizales said he is disenchanted by the lack of progress on hiring more bilingual teachers.

“What have they done? They’ve done nothing. We’ve spent all of this time, all of this energy on nothing, typical DISD,” he said.

Trustee Kathleen Leos said the school district has made some progress. The policy on hiring bilingual teachers now specifies that principals and the personnel department will be held responsible for filling the vacancies, Ms. Leos said.

“The focus is to make sure those who do the staffing are held accountable,” she said.

Superintendent James Hughey said he does not think the latest move is backing off the original proposal.

The school district could lose the chance to get more bilingual teachers if a fourth-grade teacher didn’t want to teach in the lower grades, he said.

“Knowing that we have a lot of newcomers that are fourth-, fifth-, sixth-, seventh-, eighth-grade youngsters, they have the same kind of need,” Dr. Hughey said.

But the school district still will urge principals to emphasize filling spots in the early grades first.

Dr. Rojas, meanwhile, said his goal will be to create more continuity from one grade to the next so students are learning more English as they go and will do as well as the national averages on tests in three years’ time.

“The thing that really recruits teachers is when they know there’s a commitment to a quality program,” he said.

Maureen Peters, vice president of the Alliance of Dallas Educators, said the school district is making the right decision.

“Freezing in concept was a good idea,” Ms. Peters said. “In reality, it doesn’t work unless you want to eliminate some good bilingual teachers coming to your schools. Bilingual teachers are in such great demand that they don’t have to come to Dallas.”



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