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Susan B. Anthony Elementary School offers the first Hmong Dual Language Program in California.  The program offers an enriching and engaging learning environment where students are taught literacy and content in Hmong and English.

The goals of the program are:

• Proficiency in English
• Proficiency in Hmong Der and Hmong Leng languages
• Academic achievement
• Intercultural competence

The program is set to begin with one kindergarten and one first grade classroom.  In kindergarten the 90/10 model will be implemented.  Students will be taught in Hmong 90% of the time and English will be taught 10% of the time.  In first grade, students will be taught 80% in Hmong and 20% in English.  Each subsequent year English instruction will increase and Hmong instruction will decrease until the instruction ratio is 50% Hmong and 50% English at fifth grade.

The development of a student’s bilingual and biliteracy skills build self-confidence.  Through the Hmong dual language program, students will build stronger connections to parents, grandparents and the larger Hmong community.

The Chinese Immersion Program at William Land Elementary School offers an enriching and interactive learning environment.  Students in this program will receive instruction in English and Mandarin and will have equal access to the academic core curriculum.

Goals of the program:

• Students will achieve bilingual proficiency in both English and Mandarin.
• Students will attain high levels of academic achievement in both languages.
• Students will become cross-cultural ambassadors for our school, community, and society.

Beginning in kindergarten and first grade, instruction is provided using the 80/20 model, meaning 80 percent Mandarin and 20 percent English.  In second grade, it is 70 percent Mandarin and 30 percent English.  In third grade, it is 60 percent Mandarin and 40 percent English.  In fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, it is 50 percent Mandarin and 50 percent English.

The Chinese Immersion Program at Elder Creek Elementary School creates an interactive and engaging learning environment where students will achieve bilingual proficiency in both English and Chinese.  Students will reach high levels of academic achievement in both languages and become cross-cultural ambassadors for our school, community and society.  The program uses an immersion method of instruction in which English-speaking students and Chinese-speaking students are placed together in the same class.  Students in this program will receive instruction in English and Chinese while having equal access to the academic core curriculum.

Beginning in kindergarten and first grade, instruction is provided using the 80/20 model:  80 percent Cantonese and 20 percent English. In second grade, it is 70 percent Cantonese and 30 percent English.  In third grade, students are taught 60 percent of the time in Cantonese and 40 percent in English.  Beginning in fourth grade, the students will be introduced to Mandarin, but still primarily taught in Cantonese.  In fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, students are taught 50 percent of the time in Cantonese and 50 percent in English.  Students will then be prepared to further their learning of Chinese in junior high and high school.

The Dual Language Spanish Immersion program begins with 90 percent Spanish and 10 percent English. The percentage changes as the grades increase. By fourth grade, students are learning 50 percent of the time in English and 50 percent of the time in Spanish. The goal of the program is for students to graduate from sixth grade with the ability to speak, read, and write proficiently in both English and Spanish. The second program is our Conversational Spanish. Students learn all content in English, but they engage in 30 minutes of conversational Spanish. The goal of the Conversational Spanish program is for students to reach proficiency in English and develop basic conversational skills in Spanish.

Cesar Chavez Intermediate School offers many special instructional programs that help our students be successful. One of our unique programs is our Dual Language Enrichment Program (DLEP) in Spanish and English. We offer our DLEP students the opportunity to become literate in two languages, and by the time they leave our school, they are bi-literate and bilingual in Spanish and English. Instruction is delivered in English and Spanish by subject. Fifty percent of the instruction is delivered in Spanish and the remaining 50 percent is delivered in English according to applicable subjects (English or Spanish language arts, mathematics, social studies and science). Therefore, we have the 50/50 model, and the bilingual teachers are proficient in both languages.

The Transitional Bilingual Program utilizes Spanish as the primary language of instruction from kindergarten through grade 3. The mission of this program is to transition Spanish-speaking students into mainstream classrooms by the third grade. In kindergarten, 90 percent of the instruction is provided in Spanish and the remaining 10 percent is done in English. As the students matriculate through grades one, two and three, the percentage of Spanish instruction is gradually reduced and English is increased by 10 percent. Afterwards, gradually adhering to the transition of the students to instruction in English, the goals are to facilitate the content classes, to develop their literary abilities, and to get students to become fluent in their own native language. This method will facilitate a transition from the Spanish into English language in a less stressful way for the students.

The Dual Language Immersion Program is based on a two-way immersion educational model. This model stresses the following:

• High academic proficiency in two languages
• High academic achievement
• Mastery of the state’s content standards
• Multiculturalism
• Life skills
• Community service

In the area of language arts, the goal is for students to speak, read, and write fluently in both English and Spanish as measured by the state standardized assessments and teacher-developed assessments.

Students in the program have the same access to the academic core curriculum as those children educated in an English only setting. The benefit is that, in addition, the students receive second language instruction.