Several parents and former teachers are raising concerns regarding the elimination of the dual-language program offered at Grover Beach Elementary School.

Grover Beach Elementary was the last school in Lucia Mar Unified School District to offer the Spanish and English program, which was shut down at the end of the 2006-07 school year.

“When parents became aware of this decision late in the (2006-2007) school year, they expressed their concern both at the school site and at numerous school board meetings,” said Ruth Montano, former Grover Beach Elementary teacher. “These legitimate concerns have apparently fallen on deaf ears.”

Montano taught 30 years at Lucia Mar schools, including 14 years in the dual-language program at Grover Beach Elementary.

One reason given by school officials for ending the dual-language program offered at the kindergarten-through-third-grade level is there were not enough parents interested in continuing it.

Another reason is that the school did not meet its Academic Yearly Progress requirement for English language arts for English learners for the 2006-07 school year.

“We really needed to take a look at if this was the best way for our English language learners to become proficient,” said Cynthia Fogarty, Grover Beach Elementary principal.

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The school did meet 20 of 21 Academic Yearly Progress requirements in 2006 and increased its Academic Performance Index score by 26 points in 2007.

It also met all 21 of its Academic Yearly Progress requirements in 2007, including English language arts for English learners.

“After we took a look into it, we realized that we were not running a dual-immersion (dual-language) program but rather a late-exit bilingual program,” Fogarty added.

A late-exit bilingual program is one that has kindergarten through third-grade students achieve literacy in their first language while receiving instruction in English.

Full English instruction then would begin in the third grade.

“The families are completely confused, worried and sad,” said Lidia Gomez, a Grover Beach resident. “The children will be tremendously affected because ending the program makes the them feel that we don't believe in them.

“It is almost impossible for some people to understand that the United States is a bilingual nation, maybe not officially, but in reality,” she said.

Gomez worked as a volunteer in some of the Grover Beach classrooms for almost nine years and had two children who went through the program.

After California's Proposition 227 was signed in to law in 1998, all public school instruction had to be conducted in English.

The proposition did allow for a waiver that permitted a dual-language or bilingual class to be continued if more than 20 parents in a particular grade level wanted to continue it.

“You have to have the capacity to offer the class as well,” said Mike Miller, Lucia Mar's director of elementary education. “If you have 20 parents who are interested at a school where they don't have bilingual staff members, you can ask for the waiver, but you still must have a teacher that is certified.”

According to California law, only teachers who posses a Bilingual, Cross-cultural, Language and Academic Development Certificate can teach a bilingual or dual-immersion class.

“If you don't have the staff, you don't transfer somebody in,” Miller added.

Grover Beach currently does have teachers who are Bilingual, Cross-cultural, Language and Academic Development certificated.

“The law is complicated and can place undue burden on parents by requiring them to go through a laborious waiver process,” Montano added.

“Also, districts must notify all parents, yearly, of their options to chose alternative programs, meet with parents to describe all materials used in each program, document each meeting, form school committees to consider each individual waiver, make a finding and document all procedures.”

According to a published report in 2000 by California's then-Attorney General Bill Lockyer, a school district may not deny a waiver because the district has no alternative program.

September 30, 2007