District meeting highlights dual immersion

It’s her second year in Santa Maria’s only dual-immersion language program, and second-grader Arianna Rodriguez can already speak, read, and write in Spanish. 

Though her dad, Leo Rodriguez, is bilingual in Spanish and English, her mom, Tiffany Rodriguez, speaks only English. Arianna often hears her dad and grandparents communicate in Spanish, but at her house, it’s English nearly 100 percent of the time. 

Tiffany and Leo wanted Arianna to learn both languages, and when they heard about the dual-immersion program at Roberto and Dr. Francisco Jiménez Elementary School—where students are taught to read, write, and speak in both Spanish and English during their usual public school courses—they thought it sounded like a great opportunity. 

The teachers involved in the program are highly communicative, the parents and their kids are close friends, Leo said, and Tiffany has even learned a significant amount of Spanish just by helping Arianna with her homework. 

“It’s just amazing,” Tiffany said at a Feb. 27 informational meeting about the program. 

Nearly 40 community members attended the meeting, the third of four hour-long informational events the Santa Maria-Bonita School District has scheduled for parents enrolling their children in kindergarten for next school year. 

Attending at least one of the district’s meetings is mandatory for parents hoping to get a child into the program, according to Laura Henderson, a kindergarten teacher at Jiménez who led the meeting on Feb. 27. The final meeting, Henderson said, will be held at 6 p.m. on March 13 in the district office. 

Parents, she said, need to then complete an application and turn it in to Jiménez before March 29. They must already have their children enrolled at their boundary schools before applying, and then Henderson said all adequate applicants will be divided by school boundary, by primary language, and then chosen randomly through a lottery system. 

Henderson has two of her own children enrolled in the dual-immersion program, and she said that while it’s a long-term commitment—through high school—it provides children with invaluable educational and social skills. 

Students learn about other languages and cultures in class and on the playground. Studies show that students in dual-immersion programs outperform those in traditional public school courses, Henderson said, and dual-immersion programs are largely thought of as one major strategy that could close achievement gaps between individuals of differing socio-economic standing. 

Henderson also said that high school students who are able to meet a certain set of criteria receive a seal of biliteracy upon graduation, which many colleges and employers look for on applications. 

“The skills students get in this program are really profound,” Henderson said at the meeting. 

The number of applicants has grown each year since the program first launched about four years ago, and there are only about 60 seats open for each year’s kindergarten class, according to Jiménez Principal Richard Ruiz. After those slots were filled last year, roughly 107 remaining children were put on a wait list. The year before that, there were nearly 80 applicants. 

Ruiz said the district has received interest from parents in Guadalupe, Orcutt, and as far away as Buellton, but for now, the program is only open to Santa Maria-Bonita boundary families.

Staff Writer Kasey Bubnash writes School Scene each week. Information can be sent to the Sun via mail, fax, or email at mail@santamariasun.com. 

This article appears in Mar 7-14, 2019.