South High in Denver embraces diversity

[goldmonkey]

South High in Denver embraces diversity (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_15834496)
40 countries, 60 languages


If the world is fast becoming a global village, South High School is a microcosm of that cultural shift.

The first day of school for ninth-graders was like a visit to the United Nations, with kids from 40 different countries speaking more than 60 different languages in the hallways.

"A lot of people talk about diversity, but we really embrace it," said Stephen Wera, principal of the school, which sits at the south end of Washington Park in Denver. "We are the newcomer high school for the district. If you come here from Nepal or Sudan, and you live in the city or county of Denver, you come to South."

The main hallway is decorated with the flags of all the countries that the kids come from. An intersecting hallway boasts the flags of the colleges attended by last year's graduates, including Colorado School of Mines, the University of Northern Colorado and New York University.

Linda Nguyen, 16, an enthusiastic junior seated under the college flags, helped freshmen find their way through the labyrinthine halls Thursday.

She said she loves her school.

"If you have to do an essay on Ghana, you just have to go next door to get the answers," she said, pointing to the hallway filled with boisterous teens. "You don't even need computers or newspapers."

Last year, 33 percent of the students at South were English-language learners, compared with 31 percent districtwide. After English and Spanish, the languages most widely spoken at South are Arabic, Nepali, Karen, Somali, French, Russian and Burmese.

Some teens might never have been to school before setting foot on this campus.

"If you come from Nepal, or from one of the refugee camps in Africa, you might not have gone to a formal school," Wera said. "Then you come to Denver and go to South. It's a huge culture shock."

South graduated 252 students in 2009, or 67.4 percent, compared with 52.7 percent for the district. Its dropout rate that year was 5 percent, or about 120 pupils, compared with 7.4 percent for the district.

Credit, Wera said, is due to South's teachers and support staff, which includes people who speak such languages as Burmese, Arabic, Korean and Nepali.

On her first day, freshman Fatmazahra Abdel-Malik, 14, stood in a long line, waiting for her schedule.

The teen, who is from Libya, said she is having lots of fun. "I just say, 'Hi, what's your name?' I'm making a lot of friends."

One of the high points of their school year comes in April, when a week-long celebration culminates in International Day.

"There's a parade of nations, and everyone shows off their country, culture and background," said Wera. "Here, diversity is not lip service."

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[AndreaGail]

this diversity plague crept its way up the mountains too


Dillon Valley Elementary's dual language program a hit


SUMMIT COUNTY � A teacher rattles off instructions in Spanish to a group of fourth graders at Dillon Valley Elementary School. Everyone listens, understands and answers questions. Young kids from multi-cultural backgrounds are learning together in two languages � English and Spanish. And they understand both.

When Dillon Valley's dual language program debuted five years ago, administrators hoped its success would create something special and lasting at the school. Now, there's a community-wide desire to send children to the program, and a committee is searching for ways to expand it as participating students age.

“This is the first year we had to turn people away,� co-principal Gayle Jones-Westerberg said, noting that 15 to 20 students entered Dillon Valley from other places in the community this year. Closer to 100 kids spanning all grades attend Dillon Valley despite living in other neighborhoods.

She also said the dual language program is the reason why � “It's not a comment on the other schools at all.�

And co-principal Shelly Martinez agrees: By learning another language from the age of 5, “these kids will have an advantage.�

“It's an inclusive situation,� Martinez added. “English and Spanish speakers are relying on each other.... Everyone's learning a second language, so it helps to create a global culture.�

According to Jones-Westerberg, having both Spanish and English speaking teachers also increases parent participation � “Staff can be meeting parents' needs in both languages� and “there's an expanded number of parents attending events.� Having a parent involved heavily with school positively affects a child's academic success, she said.

Administrators have already formed a committee to envision how the language curriculum will translate into Summit Middle School. This could be a little tricky, since all the elementary schools filter into it, but something will be in place by the time Dillon Valley's first dual language class enters middle school in two years, Martinez said. She also expressed hope it will be incorporated into high school programming five years down the line, when the fourth graders are freshman. By then, they could potentially have an option to learn a third language, like Russian or Chinese.



How it works
With so many English-language learners enrolled at Dillon Valley even seven years ago, “we thought this would be a great opportunity and setting,� Martinez said. So the curriculum started with its incoming kindergarten class five years ago, and it's amplified with each passing year. While only two classrooms make up Dillon Valley's original dual language class, increased enrollment has caused younger classes to be split into four.

Children are separated into classrooms, and they rotate between two teachers daily. They're taught in both English and Spanish every day, and they rotate between subjects � learning lessons in Spanish for three weeks at a time and then switching back to English.

“One misconception is that we teach everything twice,� Martinez said. “That's not accurate. Curriculum is a constant flow whether you're getting it in English or Spanish.�

Already part of PYP (Primary Years Programme), Dillon Valley's dual language program goes right along with the classroom focus on international education. PYP is the elementary school component of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Programme adopted by schools throughout Summit County. The IB program's aim is to encourage inquisitiveness, global awareness and in-depth learning.

“Our goal is to develop caring learners,� Martinez said, adding that being taught in two languages from an early age creates problem solving-skills and creative thinking. “That's the kind of employee that will be valued in our global workplace.�

Jones-Westerberg and Martinez also said Spanish-speaking kids are benefiting from the program right along with the English speakers.

“Seeing them before and after, they're learning English at a higher, faster level,� Martinez said. “It's more comprehensible because they're getting it in their own language.�

And when both groups of students learn vocabulary, it's helpful for them to read the same story in both languages for better comprehension. Children are allowed to access their native language when learning about social studies and science, so it's easier for teachers to identify high achievers.

Though Martinez didn't have any hard data to show classroom improvement caused by the dual language program, she did say this: “Comparing last year's third-grade scores to this year's third-grade scores, that is a completely different group of students, so it's like comparing apples to oranges. We prefer to look at an individual's data and see how that students is growing and areas we need to focus our instruction.�

[keehah]

Vancouver school bureaucrats unleash bizarre theories on race and culture

Budget cuts spare ‘Diversity Team’ (http://www.vancourier.com/Vancouver+school+bureaucrats+unleash+bizarre+theor ies+race+culture/4642188/story.html#ixzz1KOmUGj78)

BY MARK HASIUK, VANCOUVER COURIER APRIL 19, 2011

Language matters. The words we put on paper carry more weight than speech. History’s great movements rely to varying degrees on documentation. Where would Christianity be without Paul’s letters? Or America without Jefferson’s independence screed? Without Karl Marx, there’d be no Lenin, Stalin or Mao. They’d be strangers of history, in fur ushankas and sandals.

Last night, the Vancouver School Board approved changes to the district’s “Multicultural and Anti-racism Policy.” The changes, authored by Lisa Pedrini, manager of the district’s so-called Diversity Team, invent a new narrative in public schools, cast white people as villains and elevate political correctness to fantastic heights. And most importantly, create more work for Pedrini’s Diversity Team.

Smart move. In a budget crunch, you better look busy.

Faced with an $8.4 million budget deficit, the school board must cut dozens of fulltime staff positions, including teachers and managers, to balance the district budget for next school year. Earlier this month, the board axed eight managers at the district head office on West Broadway, sending shockwaves throughout the public school bureaucracy.

The Diversity Team, a six-member troop of bureaucrats, was untouched. Formed in 2005, the team enjoys loyal support from the Vision-dominated school board. This school year, the team budget is $762,495. (Citing policy, the district won’t reveal salaries for the current school year but last school year Pedrini made $99,031.)

The team instructs teachers and models lesson plans, injecting a specific brand of politics into public education in Vancouver. Team members target school libraries, concealing activism in euphemism. Last year they launched a book-banning campaign that, if adopted by librarians, would purge libraries of classic children’s literature (Dickens, Dahl, etc.) deemed racist by Diversity Team standards. The district’s head librarian opposed this campaign.

The team’s most recent maneuver may be it’s most ambitious to date. The school district’s original anti-racism document, drafted in 1995, included common sense declarations of equality. It was standard fare for any public institution, aimed at discrimination and abuse. The new 12-page policy, penned by Pedrini and greenlighted Monday by school board trustees, replaces fact with fantasy. New definitions—parameters, if you will—venture far beyond conventional wisdom.

For example: According to Pedrini, race, humanity’s ancestral catalogue of colour and culture, doesn’t exist. “Race is a socially constructed belief that human beings can be divided up into distinct racial groups,” writes Pedrini. “Although science has proven the notion of races and racial differences to be false, the belief has been ingrained into 9 cultural worldviews and is perpetuated despite evidence to the contrary.”

Pedrini doesn’t clearly source her bizarre theory or identify her muse. L. Ron Hubbard perhaps?

A few pages later, Pedrini claims the so-called “Racial Achievement Gap” between “racialised groups in Canada and their fellow White students… is due to systemic racism inherent in educational systems and society.” The solution? Eliminate “Eurocentric bias” from the classroom including “calendars and religious/historical holidays and history” taught from a “European perspective.”

To summarize the Diversity Team’s position now enshrined in the school district canon: There’s no such thing as race, but the public school system is racist. Educators must be reeducated to reflect new district policy. European culture and tradition, upon which our country was built, must be purged from the classroom.

Pedrini ends her manifesto with an eye on job security. She wants to “implement practices” and compile “annual reports” because “specific staff development in Multicultural, Diversity and AntiRacism Education is crucial to understand and accommodate diverse learning and communication styles.”

Most probably, the prism Pedrini and company peer through does not reflect the views of most Vancouver parents. Their meddling, outside the bounds of democratic accountability, is possible only through continued support from the school board.

In an era of austerity, waste must die first. Is there anything more wasteful, more utterly indefensible, than a team of ideologues waging cultural warfare in public schools on taxpayer time?