The Vista Unified School District is expanding its dual language immersion program to additional grade levels and a second middle school campus next year. In two years, they hope to offer it at one of the district’s three high schools.
Three elementary schools and one middle school currently offer instruction in both English and Spanish. At Alamosa Park Elementary School, nine classes participate in the dual immersion program and 14 others are taught in English only.
Fifth grader Scarlett Nuñez spends half of her day learning in Spanish.
“It helps you understand what other people are saying,” she said. “Also, I've read that learning other languages helps you not forget things when you get older. And also that it's just fun.”
Interest from families is driving the expansion, said Rafael Olavide, who directs the district’s multilingual programs.
“They don't want this to be a K-5 experience — they want to have this at the middle school level and moving into high school,” he said. “The goal is for our students to be bilingual, biliterate, and have those competencies in both languages so at the end of the process they can graduate with the California State Seal of Biliteracy.”
The program serves both English-speakers learning a second language and students from Spanish-speaking families who want to preserve that skill.
“You have families who have moved into the United States, and when they visit their country of origin and it's a Spanish-speaking country, sometimes that communication is an issue because they have been in a system that has been monolingual,” Olavide said.
Expanding the program will involve hiring more bilingual teachers. Partnerships with local universities have helped meet the need so far, Olavide said. District leaders are planning to recruit more teachers at the California Association of Bilingual Education Conference this week.
“I'm not going to say that it's been easy, but definitely we have done a very good job with our HR department to promote our district,” Olavide said.
Most Alamosa Park students speak English at home. The program started with one kindergarten class and one first grade class in 2020.
Elise Peterman was one of those first graders.
“Starting early definitely helps,” she said. “Later on, you know more words, and it's easier because your brain is still growing and you can get that into your mind.”
In Alamosa Park’s program, transitional kindergarten, kindergarten and first grade students spend 90% of their day learning in Spanish. That percentage shrinks as they get older. Fifth grade and middle school classes are taught half in Spanish, half in English.
California Spanish Assessment data show the district’s dual language students perform at or above the statewide average.
“It shows that our students, many of whom are native English speakers, are able to perform just as well as other students who are learning Spanish statewide,” said Alamosa Park Principal Kyle Ruggles.
About 900 students are enrolled in the program district-wide.
Alamosa Park and Grapevine Elementary Schools currently offer dual immersion from transitional kindergarten (TK) through fifth grade. Hannalei Elementary offers it from TK through second and will extend it to third grade next year. Madison Middle School started a sixth grade cohort this year and will expand to seventh grade next year. Roosevelt Middle School will start a new sixth grade cohort next year.
Nuñez and Peterman said learning in both languages can be challenging. The key, they said, is to be patient.
“Just relax and just go with the flow,” Nuñez said.
