Elections: Schools brace for Prop. 227

Ballot measure would force schools to scrap bilingual programs

The Palo Alto Unified and Ravenswood City school districts have very different school populations. Nearly 70 percent of Ravenswood’s students come to school not fluent in English. In Palo Alto, only about 5 percent of the students are non-English speakers, but that small fraction includes a much greater number of languages.

To teach their students English, the districts use different programs, but that may all end if Proposition 227 passes on June 2. The ballot measure provides that California school districts may not offer special language classes to non-English speaking students other than a one-year “immersion” class in English.

Non-English speaking students in Palo Alto are now placed in the English Language Development program. The students attend classes taught primarily in English, but also in their native language, until their English is strong enough for regular classrooms, said Barbara Liddell, associate superintendent for educational services. The classes are offered at each of the elementary schools, at J.L. Stanford Middle School and at Gunn High School.

The children also receive additional assistance, Liddell said, from tutors who speak the students’ native language.

“The language aide would let (the student) know what’s going on in social studies or math,” Liddell said. “It helps the teacher, too. Otherwise the student would be sitting in class for months floating out at sea.”

Ravenswood Superintendent Charlie Mae Knight said Ravenswood offers two programs to students who do not speak English: a three-year bilingual program where the student learns English through instruction primarily in their native language, and an English Language Development program.

If Proposition 227 passes, Knight said, Ravenswood can continue its ELD program but not the bilingual classes.

“We will continue with these classes until the day when it is approved,” Knight said. “At that point, we have a committee set up to develop a strategy to make the best of the situation.”

Liddell said Palo Alto could also continue its ELD classes but could no longer provide the native-language tutors. The popular Spanish Immersion Program also might have to be abandoned.

“We think we would not be able to continue Spanish Immersion without a waiver,” Liddell said.

Co-written and financed by Palo Alto businessman Ron Unz, Proposition 227 does allow parents who do not want their children in an English-immersion class to choose another form of instruction in which the students are taught English. In theory, this option might allow the district to continue bilingual classes, if enough parents requested them.

Palo Alto Superintendent Don Phillips said the district has not made plans for dealing with the initiative because of the expectation that a lawsuit will be swiftly filed to block its implementation. The Palo Alto school board has voted unanimously to oppose the measure on the basis it removes local control of a school program.

In March, the state Board of Education eliminated the requirement that California schools provide bilingual education classes, giving districts the freedom to choose how students are taught English.

“We were very restricted in how we (taught non-English speakers) under the old rules,” Phillips said. “Under the new rules, it gives the option of local control, so school districts can meet their own needs.”

Whether districts will continue to have that choice will be up to the state’s voters and then, most likely, the courts.



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