The Willow Glen Resident

River Glen fights to keep bilingual program intact

School to apply for alternative status to keep curriculum in English, Spanish

By John Pancharian

New legislation under Proposition 227 threatens to destroy the internationally recognized bilingual program at River Glen School in Willow Glen. Parents at the two-way immersion school are fighting to change River Glen's status to an alternative school, which would exempt it from the anti-bilingual law.

River Glen has for years offered its curriculum in both English and Spanish, intended to allow students who arrive speaking either language to leave fluent in both. While the program has enjoyed the pride of parents--and international accolades--it is now illegal according to Proposition 227, passed by California voters in June.

"The parents who back up bilingual education are really bound and determined that we are not going to have our choices taken away from us," River Glen parent Morgan Wines said. Along with Marilyn Dion, another River Glen parent, Wines has led the struggle to protect the school's bilingual program.

Dion said the decision to apply for alternative-school status was made in a July 29 meeting she had with Wines and San Jose Unified School District Superintendent Linda Murray.

"We've asked the [SJUSD] board for a public hearing to consider the application, and we feel confident they'll move forward in sending it to Sacramento," Dion said.

She said River Glen must achieve alternative status quickly to save its program, because Prop. 227 affects all school terms which begin at least 60 days after its passage, and the fall term at River Glen begins Sept. 1. Once the application reaches Sacramento, it is up to state Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin to decide whether to allow River Glen to become an alternative school.

Eastin's niece currently attends River Glen School.

Other schools with two-way immersion programs have taken the same tack. Two in Orange County have already submitted applications to become alternative schools, and Eastin's decision on the Orange County applicants will likely set a precedent for the 18 other dual-immersion schools in the state.

Doug Stone, communications director for the state Department of Education, said he could not speculate as to whether River Glen will receive alternative-school status until Eastin's office has the application in hand.

"Every situation is different, and we want to make sure before any decision is reached that a school is not trying to circumvent the law," Stone said.

Wines said River Glen parents have also examined changing River Glen into a charter school, but decided against because that would cut into the school's funding.

Prop. 227 does allow for waivers to the ban on bilingual education in cases when a child's parents, teacher, principal and district superintendent all agree that bilingual education is best for that student. Wines said the language concerning waivers is vague, however.

Dion agreed, saying, "[Waivers] would be one way to go about it, but we believe being designated as an alternative school would put us on firmer ground in the long term," she said.

"The idea of River Glen has always been that students come in monolingual and emerge by the end of the fourth grade bilingual and biliterate," SJUSD spokesperson Maureen Munroe said. Munroe said Prop. 227 author Ron Unz actually visited the school and was impressed with its program, promising the initiative would not shut it down.

Unz is not the only one who is impressed with River Glen. The school's two-way immersion program has won numerous awards, including the Glen Hoffman Exemplary Program Award, the California State Department of Education Bilingual Exemplary Project Award, the CABE Seal of Excellence, the California Achieving Schools Award and a $500,000 federal Excellence Dissemination grant. The grant was used to send River Glen and SJUSD staff to other schools to train staffs in how to replicate River Glen's program. River Glen has also received visits from more than 50 foreign educators traveling with the state department's International Visitors program, who came to observe the successful bilingual curriculum.

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