The Willow Glen Resident SJUSD files stipulation to bring schools into Prop. 227 compliance Solves dilemma created by the consent decree By Michelle Ku When voters passed Proposition 227 in June, the San Jose Unified School District found itself in a precarious position. If the district complied with the proposition, it would have been in direct violation of a federal mandate requiring the district to offer primary language instruction for Spanish-speakers. By complying with the federal order, known as the 1994 Consent Decree, the district would have been violating the proposition banning bilingual education in California. The conflict was resolved last week in a stipulation filed by the SJUSD with the U.S. District Court in San Jose. At River Glen Elementary, where instruction is in both English and Spanish, the impact of the stipulation is that "the program itself stays intact," said Joanne Mendoza, the SJUSD's associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction. The new stipulation between the district and the plaintiffs named in the consent decree calls for parents to obtain waivers allowing their children to enroll in a bilingual program, and for a restructuring of the district's bilingual-education program. "Our bilingual programs will continue, but they will be modified and they will be more in alignment with [Prop.] 227," district spokeswoman Maureen Munroe said. "Our parents will request waivers as the state requires, and we will continue to monitor the progress of our students as part of our own program design." Families interested in seeking waivers must visit the school site, attend informational meetings and observe both bilingual and English-immersion classrooms. After completing those requirements, parents who decide to place their children in a bilingual classroom must file a parental waiver. "Under the consent decree, parents have always had the right to request a bilingual program or not. So this is not new for us," said Joanne Mendoza, the SJUSD's associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction. The SJUSD has been asking parents to complete the waiver process since the beginning of the academic year. "Most of the parents have finished the waiver process, but some schools are still holding meetings," Munroe said. "Thus far, we have 3,000 requests for a waiver." To more fully comply with both Prop. 227 and the consent decree, the SJUSD is modifying its bilingual-education program. The program has been changed to infuse more English at the earlier grades. The district will be assessing students more frequently as to their oral language skills to ascertain that they are making progress in a timely manner. Due to the shortage of fully bilingual-credentialed teachers, the SJUSD has decided to consolidate its bilingual programs into the schools with the largest population of Spanish-speaking children. Sixteen schools in the district will offer a bilingual program. Students who live outside the borders of a school offering a bilingual program will be allowed to transfer to one with such a program. "There will be occasions in which parents will request a bilingual program, and none will be available at the site they wish," Munroe said. "However, at the sites in which our bilingual programs are offered, we will have concentrated our most highly qualified teachers, and they will be able to support the program with all the academic resources it needs." One portion of Prop. 227 that the district is not following is the stipulation that before students are placed in a bilingual-education class, they must first spend 30 days in an English-immersion class. "Students are currently in the program, so it would be difficult to take them out of the program, do the 30-day English-immersion program and then put them back in it," Mendoza said. In addition to allowing bilingual education to continue, the stipulation also modified the district's plans to build a new downtown school. The SJUSD had planned to build a new neighborhood school in the downtown area by the Tamien Light Rail Station. Instead of building a new elementary school at that location, the district will revamp River Glen, which is now made up entirely of portable classrooms, into a neighborhood school with permanent buildings and rebuild Horace Mann Elementary as a larger campus. The two new elementary schools will provide the district with enough classroom space to accommodate 700 additional students, Munroe said. The existing River Glen will be moved to Broadway High School, but the district has not yet decided where Broadway will be relocated. [ Back to Contents Page | Willow Glen Resident Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Willow Glen Resident, October 14, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.