The Willow Glen Resident

River Glen kids make news on Prop. 227 TV program

By Rebecca Wallace

As the group of River Glen Elementary School children gazed up angelically from where they sat on the floor, you'd never know they were at the center of one of the biggest election issues this year: bilingual education.

Their teacher pointed at a calendar and said, "Today is Cinco de Mayo." Some of the students repeated in singsong voices, "Cinco de Mayo, Cinco de Mayo."

The calendar fell over with a crash, and the children screamed with laughter. And the TV cameras rolled. Across the room, underneath pictures of crayons marked "verde" and "rojo," reporters from the nightly news show The News Hour with Jim Lehrer leaned in for a closer look.

Kids at River Glen racked up some of their 15 minutes of fame on May 5, when TV crews and reporters came to their school for part of a show on the so-called English for the Children ballot initiative, which aims to prohibit bilingual education in state public schools.

News Hour correspondent and producer Spencer Michels said he had researched several schools for his story about Proposition 227 and had chosen to film at River Glen because of its "interesting program."

"It certainly makes the point that you can run one of these things well," he said of the school bilingual immersion program, where students in kindergarten through seventh grade are taught in both English and Spanish.

On Cinco de Mayo, the Lehrer crew, which works in San Francisco, came down the Peninsula to interview Proposition 227 author Ron Unz at his office in Palo Alto, then headed over to film at River Glen for about three hours. Principal Cecilia Barrie spent time in front of the cameras being interviewed, along with a teacher, a parent and four sixth-graders.

"Sometimes it's a little tough coming in with a video crew, but [Barrie] was very cool about it," Michels said. "We got some good footage."

Michels said he thought the news story would be about 10 to 12 minutes long and would air sometime before the June 2 election. He plans to interview another supporter of the initiative and film at Lincoln High School in San Francisco.

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