Changes are coming to how elementary school parents register their children for East Aurora School District 131’s dual language program, officials said at the district’s school board meeting on Monday.
The district will be transitioning the program from an opt-out model — in which students are automatically part of the dual language program unless their parents elect for them not to participate — to an opt-in model which parents can select while registering their children for school, starting this coming school year.
Currently, all families with incoming students in the district are automatically enrolled in the dual language program, and are placed in either English-dominant or Spanish-dominant classrooms based on a series of criteria, per the district’s website, unless parents opt-out of the program.
The change will make it so parents, at the time of registration, are given the choice to opt-in for their children to participate in the program, rather than be automatically enrolled.
At Monday’s meeting, East Aurora School District 131 Superintendent Bob Halverson said the district is “absolutely committed” to providing students the opportunity to become bilingual in English and Spanish, but is also committed to “honoring family choice.”
He said the district sought community feedback on the program via in-person community meetings, at which some expressed an interest in the dual language program being made an opt-in program. The district also held elementary school staff meetings as it considered the change.
In 2020, the district moved to a fully dual language model for elementary students, meaning all students learned in both English and Spanish, according to East Aurora Executive Director of Language Acquisition and Early Learning Rita Guzman, unless their parents opted out.
But the program presented challenges for students moving into the district and created additional staffing needs, Guzman said, and students whose families opted out created difficulties with transportation.
Now, families will “have choice” related to their preferred form of language instruction, said Ami Angel, the district’s Associate Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessments. Families will now elect to have their children participate in the dual language program or elect not to participate during the registration process.
“Choice does not mean families are left to figure this out on their own, though,” Engel said at Monday’s meeting. “We are here to walk beside them, provide guidance and support all throughout the process.”
Registration for next school year opened on Feb. 1, per the district.
At the meeting, Guzman said that March 25 is the registration deadline for guaranteed program placement. Program decisions will be made in April, she said, and parents will then be informed of their children’s placements. Families who register after March 25 are not guaranteed their chosen program, the district’s spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday.
Asked by school board Vice President Saul Olivas what options parents have in terms of how the program is executed, Engel explained that parents can select either the dual language option or a general English program, which is English-only instruction with a teacher who has an English as a Second Language endorsement.
Within the dual language option, Engel said, native English speakers and English learners and native Spanish speakers who are “higher performing in terms of English language proficiency” would participate in a “two-way dual model,” or instruction that is taught by one teacher in English 50% of the time, and 50% of the time in Spanish by another teacher, with the teachers switching classes throughout the day.
Students who have a lower level of English proficiency will participate in a “one-way dual model,” according to Engel, in which one teacher provides instruction in English and Spanish, switching between content depending on the day. Instruction would start at 80% Spanish and 20% English in kindergarten, and move towards a 50/50 split.
The district will make a recommendation for which of these options is appropriate for each student based on their English proficiency scores, Engel said.
Halverson emphasized the March 25 registration deadline at the meeting, and noted that there is a recorded video in English and Spanish embedded into the registration link, so that parents can learn more about the offerings before registering their students.
Parents can register their children at: https://www.d131.org/register/.
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
