The Daily Herald – Jessica Cilella
“For the past three years, this has been a common sight at the district’s Gary Elementary School, where every student is taught English and Spanish, from kindergarten to fifth grade. But as the dual-language program has gained popularity, so has the waiting list to get into Gary. Last year, more than 100 families were turned away. “The Hispanic parents are very happy about the program because they really want their kids to be fluent in both languages,” Torne said. “The tough part of the program is just having enough English speakers because of the demographics of the community. You want a model where 50 percent of the classroom is English speaking, 50 percent is Spanish. But it’s hard to do that sometimes because of things that are out of our control.” To address the growing popularity — mostly among Spanish-speaking families — the district agreed to introduce dual-language programs at all of its elementary schools at the start of this school year. The only difference is that the dual-language classrooms at the other schools are “one-way,” or comprised only of native Spanish speakers.”(more)