Six elementary schools are getting new Spanish language programs as Chicago Public Schools seeks to broaden access to multilingual programs and graduate more students with bilingual skills.
Little Village Elementary, Lloyd Elementary in Belmont Cragin, and Sadlowski Elementary in the East Side neighborhood are adding dual language programs aimed at helping students become bilingual in Spanish and English.
With those additions, 46 schools in CPS will offer dual language — a small fraction of the district’s 600-plus schools, but more than double the number that offered the in-demand program eight years ago.
Spanish world language programs, which are designed to build solid communication skills, are coming to Nettelhorst Elementary in Lake View, Poe Classical School in Pullman and Swift Elementary in Edgewater. The district now offers world language programs in about 40% of its schools.
“This expansion is designed to have the most significant impact in school communities that have the most pressing needs for multilingual services,” Karime Asaf, CPS chief of multilingual-multicultural education, said in a press release.
The additions come as CPS continues to grapple with how to provide adequate bilingual staff for the district’s growing share of English learners, who now make up 27% of students. Last year, district leaders pledged they would provide more support to bilingual education programs as CPS absorbed large numbers of migrant students whose native language is Spanish.
District officials said Thursday that they would provide teacher training and lesson planning support to the six schools in line for new language programs.
Dual language programs typically begin in preschool or kindergarten and continue through eighth grade. They focus on helping students become bilingual by teaching them math, science and other academic subjects in both English and another language. In CPS, that’s Spanish.
Word language programs, meanwhile, teach students Spanish, as well as American Sign Language, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin and Polish. It’s typically offered as a class, while dual language is embedded throughout the student’s day. Around one in three students in CPS are studying world languages.
Massiel Zaragoza, the dual language program manager at CPS, said it’s important for students interested in foreign languages to get an early start.
“When students have access to a world language program at the elementary level, by the time they get to high school, they are prepared to take higher-level Spanish classes,” Zaragoza said. “It leads to long-term sustainability.”
Dual language programs are considered the gold standard in bilingual education, but Chicago students have historically had uneven access to them.
The expansion is an effort to bridge that gap, Zaragoza said, particularly in the city’s “language deserts,” where no programs exist.
Sadlowski, for example, is in “a community that has a very large Spanish-speaking EL [English learners] population, but they’ve never had a dual language program before,” Zaragoza said.
The district has expanded its dual language programs in recent years, but that has also sparked concerns about whether it can support them. Schools need staff who can instruct in Spanish and are certified to teach math and science. And the district needs central office staff to hold the programs accountable for their quality of teaching.
Zaragoza said the district has taken measures to address that, such as partnering with universities to reduce tuition costs for CPS teachers seeking bilingual certification needed to instruct in dual language settings. And each dual language school gets a dedicated coordinator that works with Zaragoza’s office to develop best practices, she said.
Language programs can also foster a sense of pride and identity among some students while introducing others to new cultures.
Eric Dockery, the principal at Poe, said that’s one reason he’s excited about the new world language program at his school.
“We try and instill in our students that they are citizens of the world, and we feel that learning another language and gaining an appreciation of a different culture could help them,” Dockery said. “We don’t want them to just limit their thinking to the neighborhood or Chicago or even the state or the country.”