>>> Home Page
>>> Go to Navigation/Site Map
>>> Go to Most Recent Posts
Big changes in works for school district
Submitted by Karla on February 9, 2007 - 9:00am.
Proposals to expand Spanish immersion
Two favored plans to expand Spanish immersion: District staff and members of the Long Range Planning Task Force will be looking into more details about these plans.
Option Teal: Plans to phase in an expanded Spanish immersion program. Kindergarten through third grade would initially be at Central Kindergarten Center and fourth to sixth grades at Oak Point. Eventually the program will have kindergarten through second-grade Spanish immersion students attending CKC, and third- through sixth-graders attending Oak Point.
Option Green: Move Spanish immersion to Oak Point, with a target of having 900 students at that school along with a 700-student elementary school in the building. The other elementary schools in the district would become kindergarten to sixth-grade schools.
Boundary changes
Next: At the Feb. 20 school board meeting, a timeline for possible boundary changes is expected to be discussed. The district is looking to change boundaries to address racial balance and equity in schools.
Source: Eden Prairie School District
Issues to watch: Boundary changes to address racial balance in schools; plans to expand Spanish immersion program
By Leah Shaffer
In the coming months, Eden Prairie School District officials and board members will be looking into plans to expand Spanish immersion and reconfigure school boundaries. The outcome of all of this could lead to a very different structured district: a district where Oak Point Intermediate could become the home to a new elementary school and the Spanish immersion school while other elementary schools become K-6.
The catalysts for these plans are two long-term issues facing Eden Prairie schools: expansion of Spanish immersion and the need for boundary changes to address the socio-economic and racial balance in the different schools.
A Long Range Planning Task Force made up of school district staff and community members has been looking at these two issues since October. At a recent school board workshop, Superintendent Melissa Krull spoke of the reasoning behind an expanded immersion program.
“There’s a rather significant demand,” she said.
Right now, the program only allows for 100 to be enrolled. She noted that 200 families showed up at a recent Eagle Heights information night.
The Spanish immersion program, which began in 2005, has room for about 100 students to enroll. Last year, the district allowed for one-time growth allowing 138 students into the program.
Krull emphasized that this is a school that is teaching English-speaking students Spanish. In this immersion program, only Spanish is spoken in the classroom and all subjects are taught in that language.
The current model allows for kindergarten through third-graders to be at Central Kindergarten Center (called Eagle Heights), then, fourth- through sixth-graders would go to Oak Point.
Krull noted that choice programs like Spanish immersion are offsetting the district’s enrollment decline.
These programs keep families in Eden Prairie, “and we’re also drawing families to our programs” from outside the district, she said.
The Planning Taskforce came up with a number of color-coded options for Spanish immersion. One option (Lavender) would leave the program as it is with 100 students. Board members at the workshop, however, did not seem interested in keeping the status quo.
Another plan, (Brown) would move the Spanish immersion school to a larger elementary school like Cedar Ridge or Eden Lake. Board members did not like that option either because of the impact it would have on the community around the school.
Two plans that were preferred were Teal and Green. Both those options would allow for enrollment of 140 to 150 students in Spanish immersion.
Under the Teal plan, the district would phase in an expanded program with kindergarten through third grade at Central Kindergarten Center and fourth to sixth grades at Oak Point. Eventually it would move to a program where kindergarten to second-grade Spanish immersion students attend CKC, and third- through sixth-graders attend Oak Point.
Under the Green plan, the district would move Spanish immersion to Oak Point, with a target of having 900 students at that school along with a 700-student elementary school in the building. The other elementary schools in the district would include kindergarten to sixth grade in this plan.
During the workshop, Board member Greg Olson noted that green offers the most opportunities “but also the most unknowns.”
With these options came many questions from school board members. What are the merits of keeping the transitional grades at Oak Point? How to make sure that no programs like band are taken way in this change? What exactly will go into the space at Eagle Heights?
Under the green option, Eagle Heights would be a half-day kindergarten center.
The green option seemed intriguing to school board members, because of the option of including another elementary school at Oak Point. There could be room for another immersion school, a magnet school for math or science, or any number of other options.
Boundary change
Most agreed that no matter which option is chosen, boundary changes to the district must be forthcoming.
“Changing the boundaries is a priority,” said Olson. And other members echoed that thought.
With an increasingly diverse incoming student population, the issue of racial and socio-economic balance in schools is becoming more pressing. At Forest Hills, for instance, the diverse population reaches 40 percent while at other elementary schools, the percentage is lower.
Krull said that the district knows that integrating schools will be better for all students.
To do that, some boundaries must be redrawn.
She noted that the boundaries have mostly stayed the same over the years.
“It’s time to take another look at them,” this time through the lens of equity and integrating schools, she said.
Krull said they could look at a boundary change plan as soon as the next meeting on Feb. 20, at least in terms of a time line. As to the Spanish immersion plans, staff and Task Force members will be looking into more details about the Teal and Green options in the coming months.
