A new way to handle bilingual education in Evanston/Skokie School District 65 schools may be approved in as little as two weeks.

Findings from a report presented to the District 65 school board Monday night indicated that students in the experimental Two-Way Immersion program outperformed students in the traditional program in oral language proficiency and reading.

While it typically takes students in the traditional program three to five years to become fluent in English, already 20 percent of Spanish-speaking kindergartners and 29 percent of first-graders from the immersion program were fluent in English.

The proposal, backed by the superintendent and administration, recommended that the district approve the Two-Way Immersion program as the sole bilingual education program for schools.

“I am ready to move in this direction,” said Mary Rita Luecke, a school board member. “I think it’s time for us to act on this movement.”

The board will vote in two weeks on the recommendation. Discussion with focus groups and teachers will be held over the next few months, and a program design will be submitted to the board in January.

In 2000, District 65 approved the six-year pilot program for two of its schools. Classes comprise 12 English-speaking students and 12 Spanish-speaking students. Instruction is given mostly in Spanish, but English is increased every year until the usage is equal.

The primary program currently is Transitional Bilingual Education. Its main goal is to teach English to Spanish-speaking students. It takes them out of general classes, teaches them literacy and math skills in Spanish, and then switches instruction to English.

Despite the report’s positive findings, there were several areas that caused concern about the new program. Half the English-speaking students failed math and Spanish-speaking students do more poorly than those in the traditional program. Furthermore, initial results showed English-speaking students were slower to learn Spanish.

Board members brought up these and others concerns.

“I don’t think we can consider changes to (bilingual education) outside of the Fifth Ward school,” said Bob Eder, a school board member, referring to the current proposal of creating a new school in that ward.

In spite of remaining unanswered questions, Luecke and other board members said they wanted to vote that night. But other board members disagreed, saying that making a decision was premature.

John Chatz, school board president, said that in spite of the committee’s unanimous backing, more time was needed to discuss the proposal.

“I’d hate to see this defeated now simply because some of us aren’t ready to vote,” Chatz said.