For the week of July 4 - July 10, 2001

School district holds lottery for Immersion program

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By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer

The names of 40 kindergarten students were drawn in a lottery last week to participate in Blaine County’s first Dual Language Immersion program.

Teachers in the program will try to balance the day so there is an equal amount of time spent teaching in English and Spanish.

Blake Walsh, the school district’s director for student services, wrote a grant application to the federal Department of Education’s Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs. The office was established in 1968 by the Bilingual Education Act, which requires school districts to take affirmative steps to rectify students’ English language deficiencies.

Based on the application Walsh wrote, the district received a three-year grant to implement the program.

This first class is the pilot group and will continue in dual immersion through the next three years. Funding will only cover kindergarten this year; next will be kindergarten and first grade, and the following year, kindergarten through second grade.

"If the community finds it a positive thing, if they see it as successful, they’ll be in favor of it," Walsh said.

Ten names were drawn for each of the four classes in which the dual immersion will be instituted. There will be a morning and afternoon class at both Hemingway and Bellevue elementary schools. Two teachers, one bilingual and the other English speaking, will conduct each class.

At Hemingway, for instance, Karen Bliss will share duties with Heidi Copeland, a bilingual teacher who is also on the Dual Immersion Program’s steering committee.

"I’m really looking forward to teaching this and working with Heidi," Bliss said.

Children who applied to the program but didn’t make it will be on a waiting list, and if they need it will still receive ESL support during school.

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