Encinitas parents seek to expand innovative language program

Paul Ecke Central Elementary employees say effort faces some challenges

By BARBARA HENRY - Staff Writer | Friday, April 4, 2008 5:24 PM PDT ∞

ENCINITAS ---- Parent Jill Levan says that when she volunteers in her daughter's bilingual, third-grade classroom at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School, she learns as much as the children do.

"This has been the most amazing experience not only for our daughter, but for our whole family," said Levan, who is gradually becoming fluent in Spanish as she helps her daughter and other children learn math and reading skills.

Now, Levan and other parents are lobbying the Encinitas Union School District to expand the program, which combines predominately Spanish-speaking children with English-speaking kids who want to learn Spanish. Paul Ecke Central only offers the program in kindergarten through third grade.

The proposal to stretch the program into fourth grade faces a host of challenges, including the school's declining Spanish student enrollment rate, its low state test scores and a teacher certification issue, school employees say.

"I wish it was simple, (but) unfortunately there's a lot of pieces to the puzzle," interim Principal Stephanie Neiss said Tuesday.

She's contemplating a compromise solution ---- a fourth-grade class that's predominately in English with a little Spanish on the side, she said.

Filling out a class

Paul Ecke Central Elementary, which sits just east of the railroad tracks in the Leucadia region of Encinitas, has five bilingual classes in the program this year ---- two for first grade, and one each for kindergartners, second-graders and third-graders. Roughly 60 percent of the time, the classes are conducted in Spanish, Neiss said.

It's somewhat similar to a program at Capri Elementary, which offers Spanish instruction 90 percent of the time to both native Spanish speakers and native English speakers, she added.

Both programs are unusual in North County, where many school districts made a shift to English-only classes after the passage of Proposition 227 in 1998. That ballot initiative barred bilingual education, except in cases where parents requested it and districts decided to grant those requests.

At Paul Ecke Central, there were enough Spanish-speaking parents requesting the classes to continue them after Prop. 227 was approved, district officials said. A decade ago, the school had at least 100 Spanish-speaking children in its bilingual program and there were multiple classes with only native Spanish speakers. Now, less than 50 percent of the participants are native Spanish speakers, Neiss said.

School officials attribute that decline to the soaring cost of housing in coastal areas.

Many Spanish-speaking families "can't afford to live here any more," Neiss said.

Seeking more students

To make up for the enrollment troubles, Paul Ecke Central began allowing children who didn't speak Spanish as their native language to participate three years ago. Native English speakers, particularly local teachers, jumped at the chance.

"It's an egalitarian thing for me," said middle school teacher Ann Cerny, who has a first-grade daughter in the program.

Cerny added that she sees firsthand how Spanish-speaking and English-speaking children don't mix on the playground if they are segregated in different classrooms. Eliminating that segregation benefits everyone, and it makes students bilingual, she said.

Native Spanish-speaking parents also praise the program.

Through a translator, Beatrice Ibanez said last week that she loved everything about it. One of her sons is in the program's second-grade class, while another will enter kindergarten in the fall.

The teachers use Latino themes, such as reports on Mexican states in the classroom, and they celebrate the benefits of being multilingual, she said, proudly holding up the certificate her son Brandon recently received for his Spanish and English language skills.

The trouble is that there isn't enough kids like Brandon and his little brother Mauricio at the school.

This year, there were only 10 Spanish-speaking kindergartners whose parents wanted them to be taught in Spanish, Neiss said, adding that school officials are very concerned about what the enrollment rate will be in the coming year.

Meeting the state's standards

There's also the test score issue.

English-language learners ---- native Spanish speakers in the bilingual classes ---- aren't quite meeting the state's test score requirements, which mandated that 24.4 percent of the school's English-language learners be proficient, or working at grade level. Paul Ecke Central's rate was 21.1 percent. That was a 5.4 percent gain over the previous year, but "unfortunately, just not enough," Neiss said.

"The school is under the watchful eyes of the state and the federal government," Superintendent McLean King told the school board at a recent meeting.

This is the school's second year in a row of not meeting state testing requirements. If things continue that way next year, the school could face state sanctions, which can range from a state review of the campus to the state taking over the school.

Given that situation, the school needs to focus on improving its existing program rather than expanding it, Neiss said Tuesday.

There's also the problem that the bilingual classes need to be taught by someone with special state certification that allows them to conduct classes in both Spanish and English, she added. None of the school's existing fourth-grade teachers has that certification, so someone from another grade would have to shift over, she said.

Teachers and administrative staff members met last week to discuss what the school will do with the program in the coming school year. That meeting was just the initial stage of a conversation that's expected to last months, Neiss said. The school can't nail down the number of bilingual classes it will offer in the fall until it knows how many children will be enrolling, Neiss said.

And that information won't be available for months, she added. Kindergarten enrollment begins April 22, but last year many parents waited until summer to do the paperwork, she said.

Contact staff writer Barbara Henry at (760) 901-4072 or bhenry@nctimes.com.

First name only. Comments including last names, contact addresses, e-mail addresses or phone numbers will be deleted. Attempts to misrepresent your identity or impersonate any person will not be approved. All comments are screened before they appear online, so please keep them brief. Comments reflect the views of those commenting and not necessarily those of the North County Times or its staff writers. Click here to view additional comment policies.