Thread: Non-English speaking, Spanish Speakers majority in Irving

Can you believe the audacity of these people? They are whining that they don't have anyone to practice their English with at school, since now the majority of the students are Spanish-speaking only. This makes me sick.
If ICE were to deport all the illegal alien students and their families in that district, there would be an immediate solution to that problem. Isn't it sad that the invaders have taken over and now Americans have pretty much left Irving,TX schools.

Irving schools offer transitional classes in majority-Spanish district

07:02 AM CST on Thursday, December 20, 2007

By KATHERINE LEAL UNMUTH / The Dallas Morning News
kunmuth@dallasnews.com

Walk through the doors of Keyes Elementary School, and a "Bienvenidos" sign greets you first, followed by the English translation, "Welcome."
[Click image for a larger version] REX C. CURRY/Special Contributor
REX C. CURRY/Special Contributor
Veronica Luna, a kindergarten teacher at Keyes Elementary School in Irving, quizzes Lizeth Garcia in a dual-language program's Spanish class. After lunch, the students switch to an English class next door.

Bilingual signs are everywhere in this Irving school. Children learning English as a second language fill seven of eight kindergarten classrooms.

Keyes Elementary is living proof of a new milestone that Irving ISD reached this fall: More than half of the district's students come from Spanish-speaking homes. Students who speak only English are a minority.

Irving now joins Dallas ISD, which crossed the same line three years ago, on the front lines of demographic change in North Texas.

"As our population changed, our programs evolved," said Keyes principal Irma Vega-Zadeh, who grew up in South Texas and is bilingual. "Our job is to build up their vocabulary."

Other districts in which more than half the students grew up speaking Spanish at home are clustered along the Texas-Mexico border in communities with a long history of biculturalism. They are very different from Irving, where recent and rapid demographic shifts are fueling immigration tensions.

"What we've seen in terms of the growth of Latino students and the loss of white students has been going on for a while now," said the district's director of planning, Whit Johnstone. "And that change continues."

School officials in Texas ask parents two language questions when they enroll their children in school: What language is spoken in your home most of the time? What language does your child speak most of the time?

If a parent answers either question with a language other than English, that language is recorded as the child's "home language." Then, district officials test the child's English proficiency. If the child tests out as deficient in English skills, school officials recommend placement in bilingual or ESL classes.

"Just because they speak another language in the home doesn't mean they don't speak English well," said bilingual education director Dora Morón. "That's why we test them."
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Last year, an estimated 1.1 million Texas school students spoke Spanish in the home, according to Texas Education Agency statistics. An estimated 3.4 million spoke only English.

The next closest language was Vietnamese, with about 28,000 children, followed by Urdu, Korean, Mandarin (Chinese) and Arabic.

A big challenge

Assimilating so many children poses a tremendous challenge, and Irving ISD is working to improve bilingual education programs designed to transition students from Spanish to English.

This year, Irving ISD added a $500 stipend for non-bilingual-education teachers who show they can speak Spanish. This includes principals, office staff and science teachers. Officials also added a bilingual parent coordinator in the central office.

"We have many parents and other community members who do not speak English well," said assistant superintendent for personnel Neil Dugger. "If you speak Spanish, that gives you an edge."

Irving for the most part sticks to the traditional transitional bilingual education model – where students are taught mostly in Spanish as young children and then learn mostly in English by fifth grade.

But the district is slowly expanding the number of dual-language classes – where children learn half the time in each language. That's because of recent research showing better performance on tests than the older program the district has long been using.

Keyes Elementary does not have enough children who speak English as a first language to offer dual classes that mix children of both language backgrounds together – something the principal said she wishes were possible.
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Kindergartners in a dual-language class's Spanish room joke amongst themselves in Spanish. Some stare when asked questions in English. They play word games, write in their journals and learn about patterns from their teacher.

In the English room, they're already writing basic sentences on the wall – "The cat is mad," reads one written by Guadalupe.

Belinda Olvera says she likes "learning the ABCs" best.

"First I was in Spanish and then I learned English," said kindergartner Edwin Gonzalez.

The children's teacher for the English portion, Miriam Camacho, was 10 when she arrived in the U.S. from Mexico. She remembers how much she struggled in school because she couldn't understand her teachers.

Her background makes her more sensitive to her students.

"After Thanksgiving they started talking to me in English and asking questions," she said. "Their self-esteem goes up because they can speak with other students and teachers who don't speak Spanish."

For many of these children, their exposure to English is limited to school, or older siblings.

Carmen Contreras, a mother of three from Mexico, has just a few years of primary school education herself, but recently signed up for English classes at a church. Her children speak to each other in English, but to her in Spanish.

"There's a lot I'm lacking," she said in Spanish. "I can't help them with homework. They ask 'Mom, can you help?' But I can't. Sometimes they try to translate it for me, but that's more work for them."

Alma Castillo, an Irving mother, came to the U.S. at age 14 and became a migrant worker. Today, she uses both languages as a secretary.

In elementary school, her son became confused in bilingual classes and began using Spanish accents with English words. So, she began speaking more English at home with her children. Her husband speaks to them in Spanish.

"To me, the priority is English," she said.

Segregated group

Patricia Gandara, co-director of The Civil Rights Project, said Hispanic children are one of the most segregated groups in American schools today – both in the inner city and in the suburbs.

Lack of interaction with children who speak English as their first language can have an impact on how children learn, said University of Colorado education professor Kathy Escamilla.

"It doesn't give them as many opportunities to practice their English in social situations," she said. "When you're outside on the playground, it's more comfortable to speak Spanish. You have no reason to switch if everyone else speaks your native language."

That doesn't mean the children don't learn over time. A recent survey by the Pew Hispanic Center said U.S.-born adult children of Latino immigrants overwhelmingly report they are strong in English.

The report also found that the Mexico-born parents have among the lowest English-speaking ability of any country, and much of that is tied to lack of education.

"Most Latino immigrants are not fluent in English, but their U.S.-born children are," said researcher D'Vera Cohn. "They're holding onto Spanish but they're using it much less than their parents do at home."

By high school, most of the students chattering in Spanish came to the U.S. in their teens. Other Latino students tend to speak more in English or Spanglish – easily mixing the two.

So far, community efforts to teach English to adult immigrants have been minimal. Just 300 adults, many of them parents, are currently enrolled in free English classes offered in part by the school district.

Coordinator Delia Watley said one of the main goals is tear down the language barrier that makes many parents afraid to go into the schools. But a lack of funding prevents further expansion.

"That only puts a dent into the people who need our services," she said. "There are thousands of folks in Irving who need to learn English. We get calls all day, every day." EMERGING TREND

The Irving ISD has recently become a district that serves a majority of students who come from homes where Spanish is spoken.

It is just horrible that our government-with help from judges-has let these lawbreakers walk right into our country and take over.

Can you please post the link to this story.

Can you please post the link to this story.

Link: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... s/stories/
122007dnmetirvlanguage.231097c.html

I didn't know how to post this without messing up the thread formating so broke the link in two. ~ This is a really sad article by the way...

Time for them to go back where they can understand the street signs.