California education chief visits Oxnard school to highlight its dual-language program

Juan Soria Elementary College in Oxnard welcomed California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond on Tuesday to satisfy college students enrolled in the school’s twin-language immersion application.

The check out was held to market Senate Monthly bill 952, which would extend funding for twin-language immersion courses at California public faculties like the one in put at Soria Elementary. According to the California Division of Education, 747 general public universities in the condition offer dual-language immersion programs and practically 1,500 offer some variety of bilingual programming.

Thurmond was joined by point out Sen. Monique Limón, D-Santa Barbara, writer of SB 952 and whose senate district includes Soria Elementary.

Limón praised the twin-language immersion program at the Oxnard web site and explained she wrote the bill following Thurmond approached her about replicating its achievements somewhere else.

“Our bill is about expanding that opportunity to faculty districts across the point out,” Limón mentioned.

Thurmond and Limón visited a course of sixth-grade learners who had been in dual Spanish and English language immersion due to the fact kindergarten. The learners asked issues in Spanish and English and spoke about the purpose of twin-language immersion in their life.

“These pupils talked about, in a really articulate way, why a system like this is so essential,” Thurmond claimed.

Thurmond also famous the value of funding pubic education packages in high demand like bilingual immersion, particularly in light of declining enrollment figures produced by the Division of Schooling on Monday.

Various advocates also spoke in the course of the check out, which includes Marlene Batista, who is effective as the director of licensed human methods for the Oxnard University District and sits on the board of the California Association for Bilingual Instruction, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Batista spoke, very first in English and then in Spanish, about about the World wide California 2030 initiative, which aims to have a lot more than half of all K-12 college students in the point out to be proficient in extra than one language.

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“The demographics of California require illustration of the diversity of the earth group, which is why our small children deliver extensive property of loaded linguistic and cultural id into our lecture rooms,” Batista mentioned.

As for the existing progress of the monthly bill, SB 952 passed the California Senate Training Committee on March 30 in a unanimous vote. It heads next to the California Senate Appropriations Committee where by a hearing is currently established for April 18.

Jeremy Childs is a breaking information and community basic safety reporter masking the night shift for the Ventura County Star. He can be arrived at by contacting 805-437-0208 or emailing [email protected] You can also locate him on Twitter @Jeremy_Childs.

This posting at first appeared on Ventura County Star: Superintendent Tony Thurmond visits Oxnard university to endorse SB 952