Encouraged by superior test scores by its two-language students, the Blaine County School District has developed a plan to extend its Dual Immersion program into high school.
"Our plan is to take it right on through the 12th grade," said Matt Murray, the district's director of curriculum. "Up to this point, we have really been running it year by year. We now actually have a plan for the next five years."
The Dual Immersion program, in which students are instructed in both Spanish and English, is now in its eighth year. It involves 520 students at Wood River Middle School and at Bellevue, Woodside, Hailey and Hemingway elementary schools.
The program is started in kindergarten. Students who have been in the program the full eight years are now seventh graders. Classes typically include half Hispanic and half non-Hispanic students.
The popularity of the program led the district at the beginning of the current school year to double the size of its beginning kindergarten classes from 60 to 120 students.
Moving the program into Wood River High School presents the district with two main obstacles: more complex class schedules and finding teachers fluent in both languages.
The district has been able to resolve scheduling complexities at the middle school, where students spend 40 percent of their time in Dual Immersion classes and the remainder in the regular curriculum. Murray said the district will use that same model when the Dual Immersion students reach high school.
Though learning a second language is a benefit of the program, the overall purpose is that students in two-language programs typically outperform their counterparts in English-only classes.
Hispanic students especially show higher academic achievement. In the spring 2008 Idaho Standard Achievement Tests, 83.3 percent of the school district's sixth-grade Hispanic students enrolled in Dual Immersion scored at proficiency in reading. That compared with a state average for sixth-grade Hispanic students of 39.4 percent at reading proficiency.
Non-Hispanic students in the district's Dual Immersion also scored higher on the spring ISAT reading tests. A perfect 100 percent read at proficiency, compared to a state average of 84 percent.
Terry Smith: tsmith@mtexpress.com
Parent Meetings
The Blaine County School District has scheduled two parent meetings for April. The first is set for 6 p.m. on April 13 at the Community Campus in Hailey. The meeting is intended for parents who are interested in enrolling students next year in the Dual Immersion program. The second is set for 6 p.m. on April 21 at Wood River High School. That meeting is intended for parents who already have students in the program.
Matt Murray
