Opinionator

Time to consolidate Berkeley’s dual immersion programs

May 23, 2012 10:09 am by Tracey Taylor

By Paz Meléndez-Canales, Ty Alper, and Vylma Ortiz

Paz Meléndez-Canales is a parent at LeConte and the President of Leconte’s English Learner Advisory Council (ELAC). Ty Alper is a Rosa Parks parent and the Chair of the School Governance Council (SGC) at Rosa Parks. Vylma Ortiz is a Cragmont parent. All three are members of Amigos de Inmersión Dual de Berkeley (Friends of Berkeley TWI).

One of the crown jewels of Berkeley’s public school system is the District’s Two-Way Immersion (TWI) program, also called “dual immersion,” which was developed primarily to increase the academic achievement of English Learners.

The basic idea is that first teaching English Learners in their native language promotes long-term academic achievement and confidence, as well as English proficiency. In Berkeley, it was implemented in the late 1990s as a way to support native Spanish speakers’ academic achievement, boost their test scores, increase their graduation rates, and teach them English. Because the program requires both native Spanish speakers and native English speakers, it also provides wonderful (and popular) second language enrichment for native English speakers.

The program is currently consolidated at the middle school level, at Longfellow Middle School.  However, at the elementary school level, unlike in many other districts with successful TWI programs, the program is spread out over three schools: Cragmont, Rosa Parks, and LeConte. On June 6, the School Board will vote on Superintendent Bill Huyett’s recommendation to consolidate the TWI programs at LeConte beginning with the incoming kindergarten class of 2013-2014.  We urge the members of the Board to adopt the Superintendent’s recommendation.

When implemented with support and fidelity to the best practices models, TWI promotes bilingualism, bi-literacy, and bi-culturalism for native Spanish and English students alike. There is a wealth of national research establishing both that TWI is a highly effective way to increase the achievement of English Learners, and that bilingualism is beneficial to all.

The TWI program in Berkeley has been a success, but the fact that it is dispersed across three schools has stifled its potential. With only one strand at each school, teachers cannot collaborate across grade levels, 3-4-5 combination classes in the upper grades are inevitable, enrichment classes in English dilute the amount of Spanish-language instruction, and there is no central coordinator (such as a principal) who can educate parents about the benefits of the program and advocate for it at the District level. These less-than-ideal circumstances have led to a decline in enrollment among native Spanish speakers, precipitating a corresponding decline in the number of new TWI kindergarten classes in the District — from five in 2009-2010 to three in 2010-2011.

A consolidated TWI school would be able to provide the best that TWI has to offer both English Learners and native English speakers. Consolidation would, by definition, solve many of the most pressing problems with the current implementation of TWI.

Teachers would not be spread out across the District, and would be able to collaborate in the creation of coherent curricular development and pedagogic strategies with other teachers at their grade level.

A consolidated school would enjoy economies of scale with respect to almost every aspect of the program that is currently lacking: coordinated parental education and outreach, and acquisition of Spanish-language materials, just to name a few examples.

The staff at a consolidated school would be bilingual, including the teachers who teach enrichment programs. It would also be significantly easier to consolidate resources for native Spanish speakers who need support and extra tutoring. And the principal would be the de facto coordinator the program has been lacking for years.

Finally, we believe a consolidated TWI school would empower the Latino community in Berkeley, providing a multi-cultural, bilingual, and bi-literate hub for academic achievement in the District – where monolingual Spanish speaking parents experience true ownership and belonging at the school.  LeConte already has a strong and vibrant Latino community, and is a natural home for a consolidated TWI program.

The implementation will be gradual, and the District has no plans to force any students to switch schools mid-stream. That said, consolidation will not come without costs. Although the demographics of the TWI and non-TWI strands at Rosa Parks and Cragmont are roughly similar to each other (especially at Rosa Parks), the loss of TWI at these schools will represent a significant change to their culture and identity.

At the end of the day, however, the TWI program in Berkeley exists to reduce the achievement gap for English Learners. The status quo is not sustainable. Saving (and in doing so, strengthening) the program is far preferable to letting it wither away. Indeed, the program should be expanded – so that it can benefit even more students, English Learners and native English speakers alike.  We are convinced this will only happen at a consolidated school.

The authors are members of Amigos de Inmersión Dual de Berkeley (Friends of Berkeley TWI).

Berkeleyside welcomes submissions of op-ed articles of 500 to 800 words. We ask that we are given first refusal to publish. Topics should be Berkeley-related and local authors are preferred. Please email submissions to us. Berkeleyside will publish op-ed pieces at its discretion.

Update, 05.25.12: From BUSD: Superintendent Huyett invites the community to join him at two community forums outlining the possible Two Way Immersion (TWI) consolidation at one instead of three elementary schools.  Tuesday, May 29 at LeConte Elementary School 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. 2241 Russell Street (West of Telegraph) Monday, June 4 at Rosa Parks Elementary School 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. 920 Allston Way (West of San Pablo). The meetings are intended to allow the community to provide input regarding the consolidation and the issues related to implementation, e.g., transportation, sibling preference, staffing, time line for implementation, and impact on all sites. All school sites are encouraged to participate in these forums. Childcare and Spanish interpretation will be provided.

46 Comments

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  • Sam

    I agree – it’s about time!

  • Berkeley Parent

    “the TWI program in Berkeley exists to reduce the achievement gap for English Learners”

    This is a clear statement of the purpose of the program, and must be continually reiterated in order to erase confusion on the part of many Berkeley parents, who persist in treating this program as an educational opportunity that ought to be available to all students. Yes, it may be true that parents in Berkeley want their children to learn Spanish. This desire has all kinds of reasons: parents may think that speaking Spanish adds to their children’s appreciation of California’s culture and history; they may consider Spanish fluency useful for work and learning later in life; they may have family ties to Mexico, Central or South America, or Spain, though not being part of a primarily Spanish speaking household. These reasons, however, blind them the purpose of the program, and cause them to continually treat it as part of the general educational program offered to students in Berkeley. That’s not what it is for! If the goal of the school district were to satisfy the persistant desires of Berkeley parents who want their children to participate in the bilingual culture of California, and learn this essential language, Spanish instruction would be available at every school. But again – and again and again – people forget that this program is not meant to serve this fantasy of appropriate dual language educational opportunities for everyone. I thank the authors of this op-ed article for reminding us.

  • UhDuh

    This is total bunk!  There is no evidence that a TWI consolidated school will help ELs.  What it will do is create a language academy for the vocal community who want their kids to become literate in spanish.  ELs are just being used by this vocal community to justify this “academy”.  There is no evaluation of how and why Malcolm X has successfully taken its EL kids and helped increase their API scores by a whopping 129 points!  YES, 129 points, and it isn’t even a bilingual or TWI program.  None of the other schools in the district has that same result.  If EL success was really the end goal, I would have expected that the Malcolm X model would have been the targeted program to expand!

    By the way, where is the data supporting the numbers of EL students in BUSD that are unable to speak english?  There isn’t any data, since the study hasn’t been done.

    If the problem is a lack of coordination of the programs, then hire the coordinator.  This is a simple and low cost solution.  I believe a coordinator hasn’t been hired so as to lend support to the failure of the current system.  How long has the program been running without a coordinator?  (4 years or so, right?)

    What are the projected costs of the coordinated program?  Ummm… you don’t know, because they haven’t been evaluated yet.  Yes, that is how we should do it:  vote for a costly project that has a less expensive remedy, and then beg for money later.  The “ripple” effects will be enormous, especially in light of how bad the budget is right now – I shiver at the thought that Jerry Brown’s tax measure fails.  Has BUSD considered where the money will come to fund this project, if the Brown tax measure fails?  We already have reduced transportation funds – where will the extra transportation funds come to fund the extra costs of the consolidated program?

    The RIvera Report is deeply flawed, and Ty Alper, as an attorney, knows that such a report would not withstand legal scrutiny on any level.  If this study is the main basis for a Board decision in favor of consolidation, then the Board is acting imprudently in voting in favor of consolidation.

    Finally, the reference to other school districts that have successfully implemented a consolidated program is a red herring.  The school districts the Rivera Report considered are as dissimilar to Berkeley as Republicans are to Democrats.  The Montclair school district in southern California has about 25,000 kids in its elementary to middle school programs (no high school).  80% of the kids in the district are Latino (Berkeley is at most 25%).  That school district uses a neighborhood school assignment system (Berkeley uses zones).  (Will the end result in Berkeley be the dissolution of the zone program?  I haven’t read anywhere how the zone issue has been adequately addressed by this consolidation plan – ah, details, details!)  Oakland Unified School District is more similar to Montclair.  By the way, I heard a Berkeley administrator say that OUSD’s TWI program has the exact opposite problem to Berkeley’s – i.e. OUSD doesn’t have enough english speakers wanting entry into the TWI program, and too many spanish speakers.  The administrator said that maybe BUSD should consider importing some of the OUSD kids to balance out the Berkeley equation.  WOW!  (Note:  Huyett admitted that there may be a lack of EL kids for the TWI consolidated program and one solution would be add more english speakers to the program – ah, yes, another wonderful solution to the EL scores!)

    By the way, I find it very interesting that Berkeleyside took this op ed piece, after I sent the editors a copy of my letter to the Board asking them to take a more measured approach to consolidation.

  • Guest

    tl;dr

  • deirdre

    If the program is to continue, I agree that it should be on a single campus. 

    If one were to consider whether or not the program continues, it’s time to get serious about the actual number of “Spanish-speaking only” children being served.  The program has increasing difficulty in recruiting enough native Spanish speakers to match the number of native English speakers.  It’s gotten to the point where the kindergarten class now represents one-third native Spanish speakers, one-third bi-lingual speakers, and one-third English only speakers. 

    What’s also very challenging for the program is that the native-Spanish-speaking students seem to leave BUSD with some frequency. (My observations are based only on my child’s classroom and may not be true across the district.)  Employment options available in Berkeley to non-English speaking workers are almost exclusively low-wage.  As we all know, these positions severely limit where you can live in Berkeley.  Having a family with children makes this even more challenging. 

    I would love for this program to continue and to do well. I’ve really enjoyed being part of this program and I respect the teachers enormously.  But I wonder whether the original goals still stand given BUSD’s changing demographics.

  • Ken

    I agree with the authors, but I would like to clarify a point. They state, “the District has no plans to force any students to switch schools mid-stream.” This is what the task force is recommending, but not what the superintendent is recommending. In his recommendation: “Students entering the TWI program at Rosa Parks and Cragmont this fall would be required to transfer to the TWI school in 1st grade.”

    http://www.berkeleyschools.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/TWI-Recommendations-from-Supt-050912.pdf

  • Ty

    Actually, the Superintendent has revised his proposal and the proposal that will be presented to the Board on June 6 will not include that recommendation, Ken.  Instead, it will recommend a year-by-year approach.  We have been told that the Superintendent revised this part of the proposal based on feedback he received from members of the community.  There will be info sessions about the proposal at LeConte on May 29 and Rosa Parks on June 4 (both at 6pm), where he will provide more information.  At the meeting on June 6, we don’t expect the Board to decide or vote on the logistical or implementation details, only whether to consolidate starting at LeConte in 2013-2014.

  • mel

    It’s unfortunate that the proposal to add both first grade and kindergarten is being revised to exclude first grade. It seems that it will take that much longer for the children to benefit from a truly consolidated school. Yes, some people will be inconvenienced but that happens all the time (when schools close, boundaries change, etc). I’m not sure what the benefit to delaying it is; perhaps appeasing parents who are against it?

  • Janine

    1)  What about the English learners in the Thousand Oaks bilingual program?  Some of the plans I’ve seen try to incorporate them and some don’t mention them at all.

    2)  What will be the financial impact?  Transportation will be impacted for sure, but what about the changing demographics?  Removing the English learners will probably move some of the schools out of Title 1, which will impact their funding, as well as their eligiblity for gardening/cooking grants.

  • James4391

     Don’t think this plan impacts TO – another task force is looking at what to do with TO.  Demographics shouldn’t be impacted too much – it’s only one strand in each school, and the diversity/school assignment plan will still be in place for the other schools.  Also there are a fair amount of non-spanish speaking ELs in the district.

  • UhDuh

    They don’t care about the negative impacts at the other Berkeley elementary schools.  They have very selfish goals and that is to provide a “private” spanish immersion program on the public dime.

    Regarding TO, they have made promises to TO’s bilingual parents that the program will continue, but, thus far, every promise that the TWI proponents have made along the way to their end goal of making the consolidated school have been broken.  The TWI proponents will string along the TO bilingual families long enough to have their ends met.  In the end, I cannot see how they can justify a separate bilingual program at TO and the “academy” at LeConte.  Consequently, the writing is on the wall – the TO program will be subsumed into the “academy”.  If they didn’t do this, (1) they wouldn’t have the requisite EL learners to justify the “academy” and (2) they wouldn’t be able to explain (with a straight face and without their fingers crossed behind their backs) how one segregated program at TO doesn’t “suffer” the same problems the separated programs now “suffer”.

  • UhDuh

    Good to hear that Ty has “inside” information on what the school district is doing that the rest of the Berkeley public doesn’t have.  Hmmm…. I think there are laws relating to back door deals… Bah, laws are frivolous!  Of course the Board can’t vote or decide on logistical or implementation details, since none of those have been worked out.  The whole thing is still a work in progress, but the Board is ready to vote in favor of the consolidation.  I saw the video:  thus far, Wilson, Daniels, and Selawsky have already decided to vote in favor of consolidation.  They said that the evaluation has been going on for a year – NO, only the site selection has been going on for a year – no logistics or implementation evaluations have been going on for a year – super!

    By the way, I saw the study on whether TWI parents wanted consolidation and the overwhelming response was NO!  Hmmm…. I guess they don’t matter – just the vocal few matter, since they know better than the majority of the parents.  Way to go!

  • Robert Collier

    I haven’t yet seen (here or elsewhere) an explanation why LeConte would make more sense as the consolidated location than Rosa Parks for the Latino community. It’s generally understood that the bulk of the Latino community lives in west Berkeley, near Rosa Parks. LeConte is far away and would be inconvenient for many. If one of the goals of consolidation is to increase Latino participation in the TWI program, I don’t understand why the choice of LeConte wouldn’t be counterproductive.

  • Cammy

    Why don’t you just come out and say it? “Bilingual Education.”  If bilingualism is “beneficial to all” and why not let more students participate?  Your argument doesn’t surprise me at all. The purpose of this program is for Chicano students to relearn Spanish that they don’t speak at home. Or they may speak it but need work on grammar. If it was only for them, then why allow students with no Spanish language knowledge in? To get around labeling it bilingual education? I think so. No one is living in a “fantasy” world of dual language opportunities. We know that those who want their children to learn another language are out of luck in Berkeley, and can spend a fortune sending them to private schools (School of the Madeleine offers Spanish to ALL students) or take a chance on getting into the immersion program. 

  • Guest

    I live in Davis, where the program was consolidated onto one campus 10-15 years ago.  There are definitely benefits, but there are costs.  One cost is that no other elementary school in the district even introduces young children to Spanish or any other language.  When the students were integrated, all children had at least some exposure to counting and basic words.   Over the years, the Spanish speaking families have moved to another neighborhood and don’t make the commute to the magnet school, so the school is now primarily English-speaking-at-home and elite.  The school has difficulty meeting the needs of disabled and learning-challenged students, so they essentially are pushed out to other schools.  The teachers tend to be very language arts oriented and the mathematics cirriculum has suffered; when they were integrated they had more options to compensate.  All of these things challenge the values of integration, egalitarianism, and how do you define “educated person” in a democracy?

  • Anonymous

    Especially since they have nowhere near the number of native Spanish speaking students they need for the program to work as it is and, when asked in the informational meetings, have no idea why those families show almost no interest in this program.

  • Anonymous

    Well, that’s pretty much the way BUSD works. All funds, even those voted on for enrichment, are dedicated to the mythical” achievement gap” and parents of kids who are doing well and bored with remedial work are told that the school can do nothing for them. Even if you can afford private you’re still funding this madness with your taxes and there’s no shortage of fraudulently enrolled students to get the ADA money.

  • Rachel A.

    Actually, I have the same “inside” information because I receive the easily-accessible Amigos de Inmersion Dual de Berkeley emails.  So if I know it, it’s not very “insider.”  You clearly have strong opinions and have spent time on the issue.  I’m sorry you are choosing to be anonymous rather than participating in the conversation openly.

    I’m a native English-speaking TWI parent who participated in the very first meeting at Rosa Parks during the 2009-2010 school year ago that brought native Spanish and English speaking parents in the TWI program along with others together.   (The meeting was held in Spanish and those of us who were English-speakers needed to use an interpreter; an informative, eye-opening experience for many of us.)  There was a presentation on the state of TWI in Berkeley and then small groups discussing concerns, demographics, realities, and ideas for the program.  The priority that emerged from the bulk of the small group conversations was a single TWI school in Berkeleyl; the majority of Spanish and English speaking parents present believed that it would resolve more of the issues than any other solution.  
    If a TWI school ultimately happens, I’m sorry my children won’t experience it since they are in 2nd grade and will complete their elementary school education at Rosa Parks.  The Berkeley TWI model has requirements (90/10 Spanish/English in kinder, 80/20 in 1st grade, etc.), that aren’t possible at Rosa Parks where Playworks, Science, Cooking and Gardening are all taught in English.  I would have happily moved my kids to LeConte; a TWI school increases the odds of fidelity to the model.  

  • UhDuh

    Rachel, I don’t need to give you my name to participate in the discussion.  If I told you my name was Sophia S., would that change how you perceive my comments?

    By the way, it is nice to see that you get emails that many parents didn’t receive – you are considered a “stakeholder” as per the Rivera Report, and I am not.  As an aside, I went to a public school where we were taught spanish from grade 4 – EVERYONE, not just those select few that get into a TWI program, was taught spanish – and this was in a majority English language location.  Too bad my child doesn’t get the same opportunity in the progressive BUSD!I found an interesting, but flawed poll of TWI families about their desire for a consolidated school.  The results can be found at:  http://www.berkeleyschools.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/TWI-Bilingual-Program-Survey-Overview.pdfThere are major errors in the report – one glaring one is that it says TO doesn’t have a bilingual program (TO DOES have a bilingual program), but one result stuck out strikingly – 19.6% of the respondents said that they “Very Much” wanted a consolidated program;  19.0% said they “Somewhat” wanted a consolidated program; 31.5% said they “NOT AT ALL” wanted a consolidated program; 13.7% said they “Don’t Know” whether they wanted a consolidated program; and 16.1% said they “NEEDED MORE INFORMATION” before they could commit to answering the question.  (It is interesting that there were more “interest” categories, than “no-interest” categories!  Major design flaw!)  NOTE: that your Rosa Parks TWI parents were 75% AGAINST a consolidated program!If the majority of the parents of kids in the TWI program are either against it, don’t know whether to be for or against it, or need more information to make a decision, how imperious is it for you all and the BUSD to come swooping in to tell them and the rest of us that you know best and that a consolidated program will be the BEST way to solve the EL scoring deficiencies.Yes, I have spent a considerable amount of time on the issue.  I have read the Rivera Report; I attended School Board Meetings and TWI Committee meetings – although, as a non-TWI parent, I was not allowed to PARTICIPATE in any of the decision-making, dialogue, or evaluation of the issues; I have evaluated the API scores for all of the BUSD elementary schools and compared EL, white, African-American, Latino, economically disadvantaged, etc. students; I have read the TWI scientific studies; I called up the spanish language academy in the Montclair school district to get information about the program (I wanted to hear about the “fairy dust” that Paco Furlan spoke about at one of the TWI committee meetings – unfortunately, I couldn’t find any “fairy dust”); and I have read pretty much every article out there on the issue.I am a strong supporter of bilingual education and I have done my best to expose my child to as much language education I can afford – he was exposed to spanish, mandarin, and sign language while in preschool and then the language instruction stopped at the doorstep of his BUSD kindergarten.  BTW, I am not a disgruntled parent of a kid who did not get into the TWI program – I did not apply for the program for personal reasons that have nothing to do with the program itself.

  • Berkeley Mom

    This is exactly the same question that came to my mind. Why LeConte, way up in the hills — so inconvenient and difficult to get to. Until I saw this op ed piece, I didn’t even know there were other TWI programs at any of the other Berkeley schools. The only school anyone talks about is Rosa Parks.

  • Lucy

    LeConte is not “way up in the hills”.  It’s in South Berkeley, between Russell and Oregon and Ellsworth and Fulton.  It’s a block from Berkeley Bowl.

  • Berkekeyparent2

    You may find the language of the above post intemperate… but I urge you to pay attention to the content. This is a very clear, important set of criticisms that reflects what may thoughtful observers of the program have come to believe. I suspect it will be ignored, due to the internal dynamics of BUSD…. but I’m glad it was stated and want to say that I completely agree. 

  • Guest

     Yes and keep in mind T.O. has a very large Latino population and it is not close to where the majority of Latino residents live.

  • Guest

     There are three strands of TWI, one bilingual strand at TO.  As I understand, this proposal will consolidate the three strands at one school, and leave the bilingual strand at TO alone.  I don’t know if the bilingual program at TO is viable or not, but consolidating the three TWI strands at one school seems like a different issue to me,

  • John

     LeConte has a large and thriving Latino community – they have a great ELAC and their Latino Heritage Festival each year is huge. 

  • Robert Collier

    I’m sure that’s true. But if it’s also true that the largest concentration of Berkeley’s Latino community lives in West Berkeley, and if it’s also true that Latino under-enrollment in TWI is a problem, wouldn’t it make sense to put the TWI consolidated school where more Latinos live — i.e.  West Berkeley and Rosa Parks?

  • EBGuy

    I think one factor in this decision (LeConte vs Rosa Parks) may be about the simple mathematics surrounding the burgeoning elementary school population in the north zone.  You put less pressure on the inter-zone transfers by putting more students from the the North/Central Zones into LeConte.

  • http://twitter.com/captfuzzbucket CaptFuzz

    The latino community has shown shrinking interest in TWI at Rosa Parks.  Enrollment has demonstrated this.  Why?  Because the program does not serve their children’s best interests.  The program does not close achievement gaps.  But it does give kids of privilege exposure to a new language at an early age.  A classic Berkeley law of unintended consequences.  Win-win!

  • Guest

     Berkeley’s public schools aren’t neighborhood-oriented, however. Why should the Latino population get a “neighborhood school” when other people in Berkeley don’t get to go to the schools near them because of the lottery system?

  • Guest

    Something that I don’t understand is what will happen to the English-only classrooms at LeConte should the TWI programs be consolidated. Will those children be moved to another school in the zone?

  • Rachel Anderson

    Can you point to the evidence regarding “The Program does not close achievement gaps.”

  • Guest

     This is very interesting, because when we were doing the kindergarten tour at LeConte, this is NOT how the program was introduced to us.

  • Robert Collier

    The concern has nothing to do with “neighborhood schools.” It’s about helping resolve the problem of under-enrollment of the Latino community, which is the primary target of TWI. Will the choice of LeConte rather than Rosa Parks be a help or hindrance for this?

  • Anonymous

    You mean something other than the published test scores? I personally don’t think that’s the best metric but that’s what the so-called achievement gap is based on and how the district measures it.

  • Anonymous

     You’d think with the decision already decreed from Huyett that minor details like this, where they are going to find all of the native Spanish speakers required for a larger program, and how it’s going to paid for would already be carefully worked out.  After all, this is going to be hugely disruptive and expensive. But they aren’t, just ask Huyett next week at the meetings he graciously invited us to.

  • Anonymous

     If they wanted to enroll they would, it’s not like there hasn’t been a massive amount of outreach and advertising for it.  The most amazing thing about this whole process is when the advisory committee not only admitted that they don’t know why native Spanish speaking families aren’t enrolling but that it never even occurred to them to ask them and find out.  It’s just another case of the great white father knowing what’s best for the brown people.

  • Anonymous

     You were probably given the impression that it’s one of those marvelous “enrichment” programs that the district provides with all of the extra parcel taxes you pay for BUSD (but, like most things outside of salaries are actually paid for by the PTA).  I know that’s the impression we were given.
    In reality, like most things the administration does, it amounts to a pet project that is completely oblivious to cost and efficacy and is intended to serve a small special interest that never seems to include your child.

  • Anonymous

     OUSD is probably short on English speakers because so many are fraudulently enrolled in Berkeley and they seriously suggested allowing more legal transfers to balance that out?  We really, really, need a law suit since that’s the apparently the only thing they understand.

  • http://berkeley.accountableschools.com/ Berkeley Accountable Schools

    One parent wrote in to the Berkeley Accountable Schools Project (quite some time ago, not connected to the present debate) with a lengthy anecdote that I encourage you to read.

    Even if you disregard the issue of out-of-district enrollment, this person’s story reveals some important dynamics within the District.

  • http://berkeley.accountableschools.com/ Berkeley Accountable Schools

    There’s a very interesting anecdote from a parent that connects some of these dots in a vivid picture.  

  • Guest

    No – the district doesn’t plan to move any kids who are currently enrolled.

  • Guest

     That doesn’t make sense, though. How would there be room? And what would happen to those children at LeConte in the English-only programs who already seem to receive the short shrift?

  • Anonymous

     Crickets.  They have no idea, have no idea that it’s even an issue, and don’t care.

  • James4

     The move will be gradual – year by year. Nobody will be displaced.  Not sure why that is confusing.

  • kmk

     ”At the meeting on June 6, we don’t expect the Board to decide or vote on the logistical or
    implementation details, only whether to consolidate starting at LeConte
    in 2013-2014.” Can you please explain how the Board can feel informed enough to vote to consolidate if they haven’t seriously weighed the logistical or implementation details? It seems to me this is backwards. Their vote to consolidate should be preceded by an in-depth study and public report of the specific costs and logistics of implementation. Only then will they be informed enough to make the decision about whether or not consolidation is appropriate for Berkeley’s population.

  • Galaxy_pie

    All evidence points to the benefits of teaching children a foreign language early like they do in other countries. Clearly we are a bilingual country. The best way to learn a foreign language is to be immersed in it. Berkeley should expand their dual language program for English speakers so that the supply meets the demand. I grew up in a city in which the majority spoke another language, Portuguese, at home. We all learned English quickly by being immersed in it at school and on the playground. There is no need for the duel immersion to cater to native Spanish-speaking children.