Cardinals.Ken

So, today is my granddaughter's first day of kindergarten. Due to the amount of children that enrolled, her school decided to hire another teacher and split their kindergarten students into two classes.

Relatively straight forward at this point; 40 students in two classes of 20.

Here's where it gets...weird.

The school administrator made it a point to tell us that the new teacher was bilingual. When she told us this last Saturday, I paid it no mind. I've found that many teachers are bilingual, and I rather like the fact that my granddaughter will be learning some Spanish. Knowing more than one language is a very powerful tool, which is why I am teaching German on my own as it is.

Now, where is this leading?

The makeup of Class 1: 20 children, all with Anglo/European names with no doubt that they are "white"...taught by the teacher with no Spanish skills

The makeup of Class 2: 15 Hispanic children, 1 Asian child, 1 African-American child, and 2 Anglo children both of whom have dark hair, and brown eyes...taught by the bilingual teacher.

When my daughter told me about this, I had to pause. It seems really henky...especially considering that this is not an LDS school, where I would expect the class divide to be along faith-based lines.

In this day, and age, would the decision makers at a public school really be so bold as to separate their children along perceived racial lines?

Is my thought process on this out-of-line? Could this be a "luck of the draw" sort of thing, or does it seem as though the school has segregated the kindergarten population between whites, and non-whites?

Should I ask the administrator for an explanation of the reasoning of their process on this?

I really do not want my granddaughter's first experiences with our education system to be marred by racial bias.

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earthsci

It may be based on their command of English. ?

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LVG

That does sound really odd. I'd ask for an explanation from the administration. They may have a perfectly legit reason behind it, then again, they may not.

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MigratingOsprey

Public school?

If so the teachers bilingual abilities are absolutely meaningless unless she is in a specific ELL program as it's not kosher to teach in languages other than english

It could be worth questioning .... if it looks odd enough that a 5 year old thinks it looks a little funky it's only a matter of time before even more people take notice

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Cardinals.Ken

It's a charter school, but it's publically funded so I still call it a public school.

I haven't talked to the 5 year old yet...it was my 25 year old daughter that relayed the info to me. To be honest, I doubt the 5 year old will have anything to say on it as I believe that sort of thing doesn't register with her yet.

My apprehension in bringing this entire matter up stems from the fact that I find it a bit of a Rorschach test; basically you see what your subconscious wants to see. I am the product of a different time. When I was growing up the breakdown of the neighborhoods lead to the school segregation; Anglo, Mexican, and Indian.

I didn't want to put that on my kids, or grand-kids.

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MrYeahbut

Were the children given any kind of test or some demonstation of any skill? I know this doesn't quite apply but, I took a Spanish immersion class last week. The maestra divided the class in a very subtle way by having each of us tell the class a little about ourselves in Spanish. She wrote our names on the chalkboard in what seemed like a random way as each of us spoke.
As I later figured out, she did this in order to divide the class by relative proficiency in Spanish. Just a thought.

Cardinals.Ken

Not from what I was told: All 40 kids were in the gym area, and 20 names were read off, and instructed to follow one teacher to her classroom, the others went the other one to her room.

Henky man...just plain henky.

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BirdMan21

What area is the charter school in? Don't want you to throw the name out there if you don't want to. Just know a few teachers that teach at charter schools in the east valley, and will for sure ask one of them tonight when I talk to her about that situation to see what she thinks. The odds of that happening without it being by choice are astronomical, now if its an English speaking issue then I could partially understand it but still the quickest way at that young age to learn a language is to be surrounded by it.

Linderbee

There is also the possibility that the Hispanic kids' parents requested that their child have the bilingual teacher.

I agree that it's probably not kosher, though.

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