Dual-language Spanish immersion program coming to two elementary schools

Some incoming kindergartners will be learning in two languages starting next fall, as the Olathe School District launches a dual-language Spanish immersion program in two elementary schools.

The children, who attend school a full day as kindergartners, will spend half their time immersed in Spanish. As they progress through school, the students will read and write in both Spanish and English while learning subjects like science, social studies and math in both languages.

“We know that studying foreign language not only makes our students more competitive in the global world, but also sets them up to better understand the world we live in,” Brent Yeager, the district’s assistant superintendent for learning services, said in a news release. “We look forward to the opportunities this provides students to truly learn a new language and new culture, and develop and retain skills they can use for a lifetime.”

The programs are being launched at Black Bob and Manchester Park elementary schools. Kindergartners will be chosen by lottery for the four dual-language classrooms — two in each school — to be created next fall. Each year after that, a Spanish language immersion teacher will be added to the next grade level to build the program.

In choosing the buildings, officials considered enrollment, location and the space available to add a section to each grade level as the program expands year by year. Manchester Park is in the northwest part of the district, at 9810 Prairie Creek Road in Lenexa. Black Bob Elementary, at 14701 S Brougham Drive in Olathe, lies in the southeast area.

Some seats will be saved for students living in the elementary attendance areas, and others will be open to families wanting to transfer into the program.

“We are very intentionally starting small,” Yeager said. “We want to build a program that really serves the needs of our students and our community.”

Teaching in two languages isn’t the only approach to language immersion. For example, the Academie Lafayette charter school in Kansas City offers a full immersion program where students spend their entire day learning and speaking in French.

District spokeswoman Maggie Kolb said that after researching the various models, Olathe educators determined that the dual-language approach best fits the district at this time.

“We chose a partial immersion model over a full immersion model because we wanted it to be accessible to all students,” Kolb said by e-mail.

Students receive little English instruction with full immersion, she added, and parents are encouraged to work on English skills at home by reading books with their children and engaging in other language-building activities. But in Olathe, more than 80 languages are represented in the student body, and many families don’t speak English at home.

“We did not want our model to be designed in such a way to exclude students,” she said. “We want to give the gift of biliteracy and bilingualism in English and Spanish to every child. With a partial dual language immersion model, we are able to have academic instruction in both English and Spanish throughout the day and can open the program to all of our Olathe students.”

There will be no additional cost for families that choose immersion, the district said, and the program is not expected to affect class sizes at either school.

More details will be announced later about how parents can enter their kindergartners into the lottery system. Students generally won’t be able to join the program after kindergarten, Kolb said, but exceptions may be made for students coming from another dual immersion program or those who already have the required academic skills and proficiency in both Spanish and English.

“Immersion programs set the stage for students to develop advanced language proficiency,” said Mike Flenthrope, the district’s coordinator for ELL and world languages. “We are excited about this program because it offers the gift of language to our students.”

This story was originally published November 22, 2019 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Dual-language Spanish immersion program coming to two elementary schools."