Stay tuned as the district decides whether to close a school to save funds or keep it open. This closure would affect DWES by bringing the 6th grade back down to the elementary. A new model would need to be developed for that and is already underway. 7th and 8th graders would all go to Sonoran Trails Middle School so the immersion program would move there as well. Changes in program model are anticipated as well.

Notes from the "Moving Immersion to the Middle" Meeting (2/28/08) 

The meeting at DAMS last night was well attended and cemented the needed support for immersion to continue. Dr. Burdick, Dr. Frison from district administration were there. Dr. Miller, Ann Orlando (DAMS principal), Erik Francis (DAMS assistant principal), Monica Milinovich (Director of English Learner Programs) and myself were involved in presenting and have been the ones working behind the scenes.

Basically, there are currently 2 plans on the table. Plan A is contingent on possible funding coming in from the state (Monica is monitoring this).

Plan A would allow the DWES immersion model to essentially continue as is for one additional year at DAMS with students receiving 2 content areas (2  70 min. blocks) in Spanish (math and science are targetted) and 2 content areas in English (English and social studies are targetted). The students would remain together and would not mix with other middle school students except for their electives. The targetted areas would be determined by the newly hired teacher's areas of competence. This teacher would have an ESL/bilingual endorsement as well as endorsements to teach their content areas.

Plan B would go into place if the funding mentioned above didn't come through. The program would still continue in 6th grade. Immersion students would be mixed with other middle school students and would come together for one Advanced Spanish class (only 1 70 min. block) taught by the current Spanish teachers at DAMS. This class would be offered DAILY and would occur during the elective time which would mean that these students would have to choose to do Spanish as their elective all year. Similar to Band students choosing to do Band as their elective all year long.

Both plans change for 7th and 8th grade. Immersion students will be mixed with other middle school students except for an every other day Adcvanced Spanish class (1  70 min. block every other day) which would become one of their two electives. They would still be able to pick a second elective which would alternate days with Advanced Spanish.

We are pushing for as much Spanish as possible as the research shows us what happens when that second language isn't practiced regularly.

Parents at the meeting had lots of questions and feedback for us which we are digesting. We are doing our best to put together a program that will put these students on track to take their AP Spanish course freshman year (our goal) and to consider joining the IB program during the later high school years. Please send me any questions, suggestions, stop by my office (back of DWES library), email or call me 480-650-5237. We encouraged parents to take 2 weeks to digest the informaiton (while we hopefully wait for funding) and will very likely call a second meeting to finalize programming and answer any other questions. We appreciate all the support from this parent group as they help mold the future of the CCUSD Spanish immersion program.

I've attached Plan A and Plan B in pdf form.

--Cristina Marchica

The grant helped bring Dr. McBiles to DWES for a day of curriculum mapping. The immersion teachers (English and Spanish) participated in the workshop as well as the preschool immersion and FLEX teachers. Curriculum maps are valuable planning tools for teachers, helping them to begin with the end in mind and chart a course for the year. Typically, annual curriculum maps are organized by month or marking period and provide an overview of:

• enduring understandings and overarching goals
• the standards-based essential skills and concepts
• the methods of assessment that the teacher and students will be working on throughout the year (e.g., major writing assignments, projects, performances)
• the major content resources

The immersion teachers have found this planning to be valuable and necessary and will be continuing on their own and during extra work days supported by the grant.

Just got out of a very productive meeting at Desert Arroyo. We are all on the same page and continuing to move forward on the specifics of the design of the middle school immersion program. My vision continues to be for the immersion students to take their AP class in Spanish as soon as possible once they hit high school in order to secure that college credit early on. I'm working hard to make that happen. So, while I still can't give you the specifics of the middle school model, what the schedule will look like, etc. I hope you are secure in what I've taken upon myself to get done. The program is a complete go at Desert Arroyo and it is proving to be an exciting and creative transition. We even talked today about getting me a little office space at DAMS so I can deicate some of my time to supporting the transition next year and go between DWES and DAMS.

We have one more internal meeting on Feb. 11 to nail down these specifics (have you ever looked at a middle school schedule?) and then will be holding a meeting at Desert Arroyo for parents on Feb. 21 from 5-6. Hope to see you there. The bus is moving, albeit a little slow for some of you...however, I again want to thank those of you who have put their trust in me to do what's in the best interest of our kids and this very amazing program! ¡Adenlante! 

New AR in Spanish : A new AR online system with Spanish titles. I'll look into how to get that up and running.

  Middle School : Programming meetings scheduled for early next week.

A+ Exemplary Schools Site Visit : We were informed that we have made it to the site visit level of the competition. The AZ Education Foundation will visit our foreign language programs in February.

Science Materials are in : Since we don't have a specified Spanish Language Arts Block, the immersion teachers teach Spanish literacy through their Science, Social Studies and Math. The grant purchased big books and little class sets of science related books in Spanish.

National K-12 Suvery: I filled out a survey for the Center for Applied Linguisitics that will generate a national report on foreign langauge programming in our schools.

The immersio program will continue at Desert Arroyo Middle School only. If you are slotted for Sonoran Trails, please fill out an open enrollment form for Desert Arroyo and return it to school ASAP. This does not mean you've committed to continue there but will reserve a place for you. I know many of you STMS folks need to decide if you can make the commute, etc. and also would like to know what the programming will be. I am working on that and will update you as soon as I have some solid answers. In the meantime, please return the form-- available here:

 http://www.ccusd93.org/education/sctemp/5302909c3e20703475a66469474f4779/1200068649/Open_Enrollment_Application.pdf

Cristina attended the OELA Summit (Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement and Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students) in Washington D.C. on Monday and Tuesday of this week. OELA is an office in the U.S. Department of Education that focuses on:

• Providing national leadership to help ensure that English language learners and immigrant students attain English proficiency and achieve academically and,

• Assisting in building the nation's capacity in critical foreign languages

 Our FLAP Grant addressed their second goal and was awarded through the OELA office. Cristina met with our program officer, Steve Van Pelt and gave him an update of the progress of the program. He is turn, shared how he prefers to communicate with his grantees, asked questions about our programs and answered questions from Cristina. It was a positive meeting and great PR to meet face to face with our officer.

Here's the link to the short clip that made the Horizons PBS show.

http://www.azpbs.org/horizon/wmvideo2.asp?ID=702