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Community argues over importance of DLI program

by Kipplyn Holbrook

This article is part one of two addressing the DLI program.

One decade ago Moroni elementary implemented a dual immersion program with Spanish. This means current NS juniors are considered the guinea pigs and first year students of the program. It also happens to be the year the dual immersion program came under fire from some community members, causing the school board to examine if the school should even offer the program.

The dual immersion program, also known as DLI, is a program that starts in elementary school. Students take classes in English with one teacher for half of the school day and Spanish with a different teacher for the second half of the day.

Issues were brought up to the board about the transportation for those who don’t want to be in the program, conflicts with parents and their feelings, new teachers, and the students’ well-being overall.

A concerned parent wrote a letter to  recently retired state commissioner Scott Collard about her frustrated feelings about the DLI program.

“It all seems obviously wrong,” in the letter it stated. “I can’t believe it’s been runned this way for this long. It’s appalling that the school board has allowed it to go on for so long. We the people are fed up and will not stand for it to continue. If changes aren’t made legal actions will be pursued. We’re asking that the school board take notice and make the necessary changes for the betterment of the people. ”

The board’s final decision was made on Feb. 18 saying that the program will stay but under more watchful eyes.

“If it’s a dual immersion program, which is what it’s called, then it needs to offer both English and Spanish,” Collard said. “To be a true dual immersion program you need to offer both, which means you offer all subjects in English and in Spanish for those who want to take English and for those who want to take Spanish.”

After taking a survey, 79% of the student body thinks that DLI should stay a program and 21% doesn’t think the program is worthwhile. 

While the majority of NS wants the program to stay, there are problems within its walls. One of the biggest problems initially was that nearly every teacher hired to help with DLI for the last 10 years was new. 

“We only had one teacher that wasn’t a first time teacher,” junior Brogan Lucas said. “I think it made the structuring of Moroni elementary as a whole, very spotty and unstable, because you had so many first year teachers coming into the building not knowing what they were doing, and I think that it definitely hurt the elementary in a lot of ways, just to have so many fresh eyes and so many fresh feet in the environment that it definitely made it hard for the school to sort of carry on in the way that it normally would.”

With each new Spanish teacher that came into the program, a different version of Spanish came with them. There has been at least a teacher from Guatemala, Spain and Mexico. 

“I think the DLI program is inconsistent and variable enough that having the possibility for a different dialect of Spanish to be taught throughout the years is incredibly harmful,” Lucas said. “You spend so much time focusing on vocabulary just to go into the following year and have to relearn vocabulary, because now your new teacher has a different understanding of the language because they learned it in a different dialect and the language is inherently different just because they learned it from a different part of the world.” 

Some students struggle with the variety of Spanish while others are also struggling with lack of practice. 

“I feel like it’s harder for others because for me personally I speak Spanish at home and get more variety with the language,” junior Sergio Vasquez said. “Others tend to just spend time in class focusing on their Spanish because they don’t have a way to practice outside of class.”

A conflict with the DLI program is that if families move into Moroni with kids older than second grade, those kids have to go to a different school than the one in their hometown.

“I don’t think [DLI] was advertised well,” Collard said. “I assumed for ten years that they offered English along with Spanish and I didn’t find out that it wasn’t a true dual immersion program until it was brought up to me. I would guess that most people who moved into Moroni assumed that they offered both too.”

Some believe that having the program is harming the community, people wanting to move there and the people in the town.

“There are lots of reasons why people will move into a community whether it is for a job or for a religious reason,” Collard said. “And because we don’t offer true dual immersion in Moroni, it shouldn’t be a reason people would say ‘oh I’m not going to move there I’ll move someplace else.’ There will be a lot of people who won’t move there and it’s not just hurting Moroni, but it’s also harming Chester and Wales too.”  

Even with being under pressure for the way the DLI program is set up, there is hope for it in the future. 

“Future generations should have it better,” Vasquez said. “The teachers will have more experiences being a teacher and the program would most likely have the majority of the flaws out, creating a DLI program more effective for the kids.”