Bilingual Education

Claudia Peschiutta GLENDALE -- After more than a year of anticipation, Glendale Unified School District officials were thrilled to find out Tuesday they had been awarded a $234,000 federal grant for bilingual education training. Mary McKee, director of instructional support services for the district, said the $234,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education will be used to train administrators, aides and more than 150 teachers over the next three years.

BILINGUAL EDUCATION The California Assn. for Bilingual Education has named the Glendale Unified School District its district of the year for providing ?exemplary? programs for English learners. The association will announce the award during a presentation Tuesday and will recognize the district at a conference Feb. 25 at the Long Beach Convention Center. Bilingual education has been an emphasis for the district, which has dual-language immersion programs for Armenian, German, Korean and Spanish, with Italian set to begin next year.

Glendale Unified School District Board of Education President Mary Boger and her board colleague, Joylene Wagner, unveiled the California Assn. for Bilingual Education award Thursday. Glendale Unified was chosen as bilingual school district of the year in large part for its successful dual-language programs. The ceremony at Jefferson Elementary School coincided with the school’s monthly flag ceremony in which students are recognized as students of the month and for good behavior.

Claudia Peschiutta GLENDALE - Bilingual education was an issue in the city long before the passage of Proposition 227 -- the "English-only" instruction law approved by voters in 1998. Though the Glendale Unified School District already had a coordinator of intercultural education and English-as-a-Second-Language programs on 10 campuses by 1973, the federal government did not think local schools were doing enough. In 1976, the district was cited by the federal Office for Civil Rights, then under the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, for discriminatory educational practices and faced the possible loss of federal grant money.

Alex Coolman SOUTHWEST GLENDALE -- Edison Elementary School fourth-grader Daisy Favela was so excited she forgot her grammar. "This is such a great time!" she said. "That's because right now I am sitting on a history!" The history Favela was sitting on was the Edison School-Pacific Pacific Park Neighborhood Improvement Project, which officially broke ground Wednesday. In a ceremony attended by virtually every city and school board official who could squeeze into a hard hat and pick up a shovel, the $44-million project got a send-off with appropriate pomp and circumstance.

DAN KIMBER My first teaching assignment in Glendale 30 years ago was an English as a Second Language class consisting of a very small group of Latinos, Koreans, Vietnamese and Armenians. Because the group was small, the kids got to know each other pretty well by the end of the year. Because their common language was, by necessity, English, they learned to speak it faster and better than many students do today. They all struggled equally with a very difficult language and while they were in my room, they were not allowed to speak anything but English.

Federal grants worth $2.4 million will expand successful dual-language programs at Glendale Unified School District to more campuses, officials said Wednesday. The Foreign Language Academy of Glendale, known as FLAG, was awarded two grants by the U.S. Department of Education, a rare funding boost that administrators said would allow Spanish-language programming at Toll Middle School and Korean at another middle school campus by 2013. FLAG began a few years ago and offers bilingual education in Spanish, Armenian, Korean, German and, most recently, Italian.

GLENDALE — Giggles started to spread through a Franklin Elementary School classroom Tuesday as students tried to count in Italian. The students called out the single-digit numbers with ease, but began stumbling through the teens and eventually fell behind teacher Daniela Pino, laughing and mumbling their way to 20. “Dodici, tredici, quattordici, quin...tor...dici...” the students called out, trailing off in uncertainty. Students at Franklin Elementary School began new after-school Italian classes last week, in sessions that started with instructions in the foreign tongue.

Joylene Wagner I am writing in response to Marineh Khachadour's two-part commentary, "When the healing starts" (June 15). I am writing because the opinions seemed to me and to several others who have spoken to me so unaccepting of the many and varied efforts of many good, informed and hard-working people in this community, not the least of whom are the "darling PTA volunteers" she evidently disdains. Certainly, one can find examples of behaviors within all groups -- PTA included -- that are more hurtful than helpful, as evidenced by her distressing story of the cafeteria worker who embarrassed a child.

Shushanna Petrosyan wrapped up the Pledge of Allegiance and instructed everyone at a recent Glendale Unified School District Board of Education meeting to be seated. “I’m in fifth grade at Horace Mann Elementary School,” she began. Born in Armenia, Shushanna said she enrolled in Glendale Unified four years ago. “I didn’t know a word of English,” she continued. “Three months later, I was speaking faster than all my friends.” Glendale Unified is no stranger to students like Shushanna.

GLENDALE — School officials have approved expanding the district’s popular foreign-language immersion program to include Japanese at Verdugo Woodlands Elementary School. The Foreign Language Academy of Glendale is a dual-language elementary and middle school program in which students are exposed to instruction in one of now six foreign languages and English throughout the year. Classes are expected to begin in Japanese at Verdugo Woodlands next fall, representing a major win for parents there who had been lobbying for the program.

GLENDALE — School officials have approved expanding the district’s popular foreign-language immersion program to include Japanese at Verdugo Woodlands Elementary School. The Foreign Language Academy of Glendale is a dual-language elementary and middle school program in which students are exposed to instruction in one of now six foreign languages and English throughout the year. Classes are expected to begin in Japanese at Verdugo Woodlands next fall, representing a major win for parents there who had been lobbying for the program.

Glendale Unified School District Board of Education President Mary Boger and her board colleague, Joylene Wagner, unveiled the California Assn. for Bilingual Education award Thursday. Glendale Unified was chosen as bilingual school district of the year in large part for its successful dual-language programs. The ceremony at Jefferson Elementary School coincided with the school’s monthly flag ceremony in which students are recognized as students of the month and for good behavior.

GLENDALE — The bilingual achievement seal printed on Glendale Unified School District diplomas for more than 10 years has been adopted by state education officials. The seal is now available for students from Redding to Chula Vista who meet one of five criteria that displays a mastery of a foreign language. “Before, when it was just our district, it didn’t have the same cachet as it does now that more people across the state are doing it as well,” said Joanna Junge, the director of special projects and intercultural education for Glendale Unified.

GLENDALE — Scores of parents are recruiting more families to support adding Japanese to the Glendale Unified School District’s popular slate of elementary school dual-language programs. Organizers said they want to replicate the success of other dual-language programs offered in Italian, German, Armenian, Spanish and Korean. The Foreign Language Academy of Glendale, or FLAG, has been widely lauded for boosting campus enrollment and academic achievement. In September, the Glendale Unified School District Board of Education accepted two grants totaling $2.4 million for expanding the Spanish and Korean programs.

Federal grants worth $2.4 million will expand successful dual-language programs at Glendale Unified School District to more campuses, officials said Wednesday. The Foreign Language Academy of Glendale, known as FLAG, was awarded two grants by the U.S. Department of Education, a rare funding boost that administrators said would allow Spanish-language programming at Toll Middle School and Korean at another middle school campus by 2013. FLAG began a few years ago and offers bilingual education in Spanish, Armenian, Korean, German and, most recently, Italian.

BILINGUAL EDUCATION The California Assn. for Bilingual Education has named the Glendale Unified School District its district of the year for providing ?exemplary? programs for English learners. The association will announce the award during a presentation Tuesday and will recognize the district at a conference Feb. 25 at the Long Beach Convention Center. Bilingual education has been an emphasis for the district, which has dual-language immersion programs for Armenian, German, Korean and Spanish, with Italian set to begin next year.

GLENDALE — Giggles started to spread through a Franklin Elementary School classroom Tuesday as students tried to count in Italian. The students called out the single-digit numbers with ease, but began stumbling through the teens and eventually fell behind teacher Daniela Pino, laughing and mumbling their way to 20. “Dodici, tredici, quattordici, quin...tor...dici...” the students called out, trailing off in uncertainty. Students at Franklin Elementary School began new after-school Italian classes last week, in sessions that started with instructions in the foreign tongue.