The Cronkite News – Alicia Clark
“When Reva Wood was a child, her Spanish-speaking parents made the decision to only speak to her in English. They wanted to protect Wood. “They experienced a lot of prejudice and discrimination with being Spanish speaking so when they had children in the 70s and 80s that were school age, they decided not to teach that to us,” Wood said. Now with a child of her own, Wood, who identifies as Latina, wants to ensure her daughter Remi learns Spanish. Remi is a fourth-grader at Biltmore Preparatory Academy in Phoenix where she is enrolled in the Spanish-language immersion program. “It’s kind of like a reintroduction to my daughter that she speaks Spanish now.” There are 21 language immersion programs in Maricopa. Five of those programs are in Mandarin, the rest in Spanish. Biltmore Preparatory Academy introduced a language immersion program in 2010 when the district was experimenting with ways to increase the school’s enrollment. “Initially it started as a traditional academy,” said Dr. Joel Laurin, principal. Parents were intrigued by Desert Willow Elementary School in the Cave Creek School District that has offered dual language education for the past twelve years. “They (the parents) wanted to bring it on board so they approached the principal at the time and they talked to the district and they did their homework and it became a part of the program,” said Laurin. “It’s grown a lot since then.” Of the 551 students at the school, about 75 percent of them are on the language immersion learning track, Laurin said. Students in the immersion program spend half the day learning in English and the other half in Spanish.”(more)