Notecards in blue and red letters — blue for English and red for Spanish — line the walls of Betty Salgado’s fourth-grade class at Washington Elementary School. The class is a mix of Latino, black and white students who sit in groups of four as they work on different projects.
Warren Weber, 9, concentrates on translating an English word to Spanish on a notecard when a nearby Latino classmate asks him for his marker in Spanish. His native language is English, but Weber answers in Spanish.
Salgado’s class is a Two Way Immersion, or TWI, class that mixes Latino and non-Latino students in a bilingual setting. Washington was the first elementary school to adopt the program, which began in fall 2000. Dawes, Oakton and Dewey elementary schools since have added the bilingual curriculum in English and Spanish to provide opportunities for the steady influx of Spanish-speaking students in Evanston.
Educational opportunities that promote bilingual education and minority achievement have drawn Latino families to Evanston. Principal Susanne DeLaCruz of Washington Elementary said programs such as TWI have sparked an overwhelmingly positive response from both Latino and non-Latino parents.
“The program is excellent,” Salgado said. “I can’t believe it. All the statistics from our program have shown that TWI students do better on the ISAT than mainstream
students.”
Fourteen percent of students in Evanston/Skokie School District 65 are Latino, according to the 2004 Illinois State Accountability Report. Kathy Miehls, director of public relations at Evanston Township High School, said that 9.1 percent of students are Latino at ETHS and the number is gradually increasing.
“I feel that they learn at the same level as the kids who learn only in English,” said Marta Rodriguez, whose niece, 11, daughter, 9, and son, 5, are in Evanston schools.
The purpose of programs such as TWI and Latino Quest at ETHS is to encourage minority achievement. Teachers said Latinos in the TWI program score higher on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test than the state average.
Students who start the TWI program in kindergarten are taught 80 percent of their curriculum in Spanish and the rest in English. When they reach the third grade, they are taught 50 percent in English and Spanish. Depending on the teacher and students, the language spoken is interchanged daily or weekly.
De La Cruz said Latino parents largely support the program because it honors a diverse Spanish culture. She added that programs such as English as a Second Language often ignore Spanish culture and only teach English literacy.
“(Latinos) want their children to be bilingual and bi-literate,” said Judy Yturriago, director of bilingual programs for District 65. “It’s our experience that the children in the program do very well academically.”
Yturriago estimated that about half of the students were born here and speak Spanish at home and the other half recently immigrated.
There are a number of non-Latino parents who have voluntarily placed their children in the TWI program.
De La Cruz said these parents want to increase their children’s literacy and cultural understanding.
“A lot of the white parents think this program will make their child smarter,” De La Cruz said.
Cathy Pino, world languages department chairwoman at Evanston Township High School, said Latino Quest is a mentoring program that pairs high-achieving Latino students with promising eighth graders to help them successfully transition to high school.
“There are a lot of needs for Latino students,” Pino said. She said a number of Latino students at ETHS are English-dominant
speakers.
“There are lots of different profiles of Latino students,” she said. “It’s unfair to group them all as being deficient in English.”
Pino said that ETHS is trying to cater to niches within the Latino community, such as newcomers, heritage Spanish speakers and parents. She said that the Spanish program has grown tremendously in the last several years. ETHS has more students taking the Spanish AP class. The class requires years of preparation from native Spanish speakers as it tests reading and writing skills.
“(The class) exposes students to college-level courses,” said Pino, who added that Latino students and their parents usually aren’t aware of the AP classes. Many parents are unaware that college is a viable and common option.
Many of the Latino parents who have immigrated here have high hopes for their children. But having come from other countries, they aren’t used to being involved with the school.
“They care very much about their child succeeding,” said Pino, “but some of them are intimidated by the building. Our building is larger than high schools in other countries.”
De La Cruz said Latino parents are very respectful of authority and trust the schools to make decisions for their children. She added that many parents can’t be as involved as other parents.
“It could be a poverty issue,” said De La Cruz, citing that Washington Elementary is in a lower income part of Evanston. “But everything is centered around the family. They can’t afford or don’t want a babysitter so they can’t come in. Some of them work more than one job.”
When Washington scheduled a parent meeting that invited the whole family to a meal, more than 100 parents attended.
ETHS has tried to build better communication between the school and Latino parents with the recently-added position of a bilingual parent liaison. Since then, there have been several occasions where all parents of ESL students attended meetings.
“Building communication is our biggest challenge,” Pino said. “We’re trying to connect with (Latinos) and build awareness of what we offer.”
Reach Deborah Meron at [email protected].
