Student Services Profile: Bilingual Education at Greenbrook School
Kim Cline, Director of Student Services
It was August 2014 and a little girl was about to start kindergarten at Greenbrook School. Her family speaks Spanish at home, but she didn't like to. She wanted to speak English and would correct her parents when she felt like they said something wrong in English. The girl was not able to communicate well with her grandma and family in Mexico.
The girl went through the kindergarten screening and, because another language is spoken at home, she completed English language screening as well. The score on the English language screener qualified her for special services. Like many kindergarten students she knew some letters, a couple sounds, but needed to learn most of her foundational skills.
She didn't know how GREAT her kindergarten year was going to be.
Mrs. Patricia Reardon joyfully started District 20's first Spanish bilingual classroom last school year at the kindergarten level. As someone who has experienced being an English Language Learner, she utilized research based teaching techniques and her own experiences to teach content area classes in both Spanish and English. She taught her students how to read and write in Spanish and in English.
The majority of bilingual students in District 20 are born in the US, but have varying skill levels in their native language and English. At this time in District 20, we are able to support bilingual education at Greenbrook Elementary because of the number of students that speak Spanish within each grade level. Most students in District 20 receive English language services and support through a traditional model of pulling students out of the general education classroom to enrich learning.
I had the privilege of having dinner with Mrs. Garcia last week as we met to discuss our Bilingual Parent Advisory Committee. Mrs. Garcia is the parent of the little girl that was aforementioned. Mrs. Garcia shared a story of her daughter texting, in Spanish, with her grandma in Mexico this summer. Mrs. Garcia also reported that her daughter was reading all summer, as much as she could, and often used mom's phone to access the RAZ kids app.
This year, Ms. Sarah Nykaza, is extending our bilingual programming into the 1st grade. More of her instruction will be in English, but she will continue to build on the Spanish language development in reading and writing.
Thank you, Mrs. Reardon for taking on the challenge of starting this program.
Thank you, to the families of our students in the program that saw the benefit of what their children were learning.
We look forward to many conversations about the benefits of bilingual education and hope to see our numbers increase each year.
Please contact any of the following people if you have questions
about Bilingual Education in District 20:
Kim Cline, Director of Student Services
John Gustafson, Greenbrook Principal
