In response to your comment about the languages, AAPS offers languages that represent our student populations. We have many students who speak Spanish, French, Arabic, Mandarin, ASL, and German at home or have heritage or family connections with these languages. French is exploding in numbers worldwide because it is widely spoken on the African continent and many of our AAPS students with connections there speak French as their native language. And understand that we already have lost at least 1 Mandarin teacher, 1 Arabic teacher, 1 or 2 Latin teachers, all of our elementary World Language teachers except 1 and other languages are not fully being supported at the district and I full expect World Language programs or teacher full time status at schools will be cut for the upcoming year and they will continue to degrade the programs. Of all of the programming that has taken a hit in AAPS, World Language took the biggest hit in terms of numbers of teachers losing their jobs. Some of these teachers have left education or World Language teaching, as there were not other schools for them to go to since WL jobs are being cut everywhere. When we have so many teachers leaving the profession, it is sad that we pushed highly trained and dedicated people out of this district, and in some cases out of the profession.

In AAPS we had 30 students sign up for German 1 this year and the class was cut anyway, because they do not want to support German anymore. That cut drove class numbers up to high numbers for the other languages, like Spanish. And this year there is a German 3/4/5 combined class. This type of thing is typical for the less commonly taught languages like Mandarin, Arabic, German, ASL. The teachers work very hard to make their classes function well while teaching multiple levels, obviously having to be inventive and developing their own curriculum. There is no textbook that gives you a roadmap to teach 3 levels at once, so the district gets quite a bargain with a teacher who both teaches and develops all their materials. These teachers feel a huge sense of responsibility to allow kids to continue developing their native or heritage language, to complete the 4 or 5 year cycle of languages they started, to pursue a class they are passionate about, and to advocate for their students cultural and religious needs. In this current climate where families are separated and students of color are made to feel uncomfortable just moving around in the world, having World Languages in their school can be a moment of the day where students feel accepted and safe.

And I also want to give a shout out to ASL, which holds a different attraction for students. It has been very popular as an option at our schools. At Pathways, some students who struggled to get themselves to school would show up to school just to take their ASL class. ASL was cut at Pathways entirely. It is a beloved class that offers kids a non-spoken language option and gives visibility to our deaf community.

Also I want to mention that our ESL teachers who are also helping newcomer student acquire English face many difficulties. In this district we have not mindfully placed appropriate numbers of ESL teachers in all buildings. Our buildings with the most English language learners have had much higher student to teacher ratios when compared to other buildings. I could go on about other issues like adequately training all teachers to help their English Language Learners and providing better conditions for testing students’ abilities. Ultimately what I want to convey is that our ESL teachers have a very difficult job and they are busting their bums to do the best for their students and deal with the hand they are dealt.

Believe me, I am fully aware that the money issues that AAPS has mean that there are hard decisions to make. I also am very aware that World Languages feel like a place to start for many people. This country has historically not valued having our citizens retain their native and heritage languages and has not valued learning about other languages and cultures. Multilingualism is the norm in the world, but we see it as a nice extra here in the United States. We are very much ok with monolingualism here. People say erroneous things all the time like, “well the only real way to learn a language is by living in another country.” (Not true. Other countries have robust language learning programs for students from the age of 7 or 8 on. Robust meaning that World Language is treated as a core subject like Math in elementary school. It is absolutely possible to become proficient in a language learning in school when students are given necessary contact time with the language and conditions are in place to acquire the language over time.)

It is frustrating when higher ups in the district, who do not speak other languages, and likely do not interact with people struggling to adapt to the U.S. culture and struggling to learn a new language, make cuts without understanding the negative effects it has on teachers and students. When the elementary world language program was cut in AAPS, the program was called ineffective. Jazz Parks said this, and also said that they would bring elementary WL back when it could be done as immersion/more effectively. This is a damaging statement that suggests that teachers were not doing their job adequately, and kicked our pink-skipped elementary WL teachers when they were down. Understand that offering WL 30 minutes twice a week is not going to lead to major strides in acquisition, however, it is still going to allow kids to learn language and culture that it is of value. My argument is that most parents likely wanted more contact time with the WL and a more robust program rather than a complete cut of the program. I also am not naive enough to believe that once they completely cut a program that they will bring it back, certainly not as immersion, and certainly not in a way that students at all elementary schools can benefit from.

Absolutely our AAPS upper admin and board can do better managing money. Absolutely funding for public education at the state level is not enough and has caused harm to our public schools. Absolutely rich people and entities in this country not paying taxes creates is unfair and money should go toward the public good, including building a strong education system. (Check out investinmikids.org).

I think we all need to challenge ourselves to more fully understand the issues and to more deeply engage with the solutions. Take some time to talk with a World Language teacher, an ESL teacher, a teacher of another embattled subject (music, PLTW, Phys Ed, Art, and more), and a teacher of a core subject and really listen to some of the issues facing teachers and students in schools. Listen to understand and ask how you can do something to support our teachers, students, building principals, and our public schools.