Life in the Way

The End for German and French, All Hail Spanish.

I received an email from a parent in Spotswood today regarding the end of French and German languages in town. The following was the email I received

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You’ve no doubt heard of the Spotswood Board of Ed’s plan to remove French and German from the curriculum (if not here is the link to the Home News Tribune article). I’d like to fill you in on what I know about the situation after attending Tuesday’s Board meeting.

Apparently, at the January 18th meeting, the Board voted to remove French and German. Those high school students who are currently taking these languages would finish their study of the languages through their high school years, but incoming 9th graders would only be offered Spanish. The minutes of this meeting are at this link.

I find it very interesting that the Board spent a good deal of time during the 2006-07 school year emphasizing how much they desired open communication with the parents and the community, and this important decision was not publicized at all.

Through word of mouth, the news of this change spread, and there were about 30 parents and also students present at the meeting this past Tuesday. All of us expressed our concern over the lack of choice our children would now have. I’d like to let you know several points that were made at the meeting.

The Board expressed that their decision was based on a desire to have Spotswood graduates be bilingual, and therefore more marketable. The decision was made to focus on Spanish since it is so common in the USA.

When asked if there was any research to back up their decision, they had no answer.

When asked if this was also occurring in other schools in the county or state, they said that it wasn’t. (Since Tuesday, I’ve found out that other districts are adding languages, not removing them).

The Board denied that it was a budgetary decision - which actually does make sense to me, because if they cut the French and German teachers, they’ll need to replace them with Spanish teachers.

We asked what the plan was for implementation of this new curriculum direction - they had no answer.

In light of the public response on Tuesday night, the Board agreed that the committee that had made this decision would reconvene, consider all that had been said, and would return with a decision at the next Board meeting on February 19th. We expressed the concern that many parents may yet have been unaware of the Board’s direction and a desire to inform all parents and get their responses. The Board agreed to send out a message via the Email Blast. If you’re on the Email Blast, you’ve already seen this, I guess, but just in case, I’m forwarding their message to you below. You can take their survey, or you can email the Board directly at spotswoodboe@spotswood.k12.nj.us

If you’ve seen the survey already, I’m wondering if you have the same reaction as I do - we are asked to choose between two statements - I want my child to be bilingual, or I want my child to be offered French and German in high school. I believe if these are the only options given, the data may not accurately reflect the public’s opinion.

First of all, those two statements are not mutually exclusive. What if I would like my child to be bilingual in French or German? I’m not given that option in the survey! So, I’m going to email the Board with my thoughts and feelings on this matter, and I encourage all of you to do the same. Ask your spouse to email as well - the more responses they get the better. And please consider coming to the Board meeting on February 19th to see what they have to say.

This message is going out to anyone I had in my address book who is a Spotswood, Helmetta or Milltown resident. This is affecting or will affect all our children - feel free to send this on to anyone else you know whose children attend Spotswood schools!

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My personal wish list would be the addition of Mandarin, Arabic and Hindi, with the option for the parent to choose which language from Kindergarten through Sixth Grade our child(ren) could take. After Sixth Grade the child could make the choice of language through Twelveth Grade. Languages should be part of the ciriculum from the beginning of a child’s academic career (yeah, Sesame Street, Dora and Kai-lan!!!).

What are your thoughts on the issue?

Should there be a response from a church or all the churches? If so, what would it be?

Tags: Education, Random Thoughts