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Mostly Cloudy Merrick board agrees to keep Spanish
Committee to review program, determine goals
The Merrick School District administration reversed course last Tuesday on a recent recommendation to cut Spanish from the curriculum, citing the importance of foreign language in the elementary school, or FLES, and pledging to keep and improve Merrick’s Spanish program.
Superintendent Dr. Dominick Palma recommended in January that the district eliminate the Spanish program, which comprises one 45-minute lesson every six school days from third to sixth grade, because he said he believed students did not gain enough proficiency to justify the instructional time spent on it. The cut would have laid off the district’s two Spanish teachers.
At the Feb. 10 Board of Education meeting, however, Palma recommended preserving the program in its current form through June and “probably next school year.” His latest move came after parents and students who support FLES began speaking in the media and collecting petition signatures.
Palma read what he said was a quote from Therese Sullivan Caccavale, a past president of the National Network for Early Language Learning.
“Learning to speak another language takes time, which in school settings means years and years of exposure to second language in a well-articulated, long sequence of language learning,” Palma read. “It is for this reason that we must advocate for the development of foreign language programs for all children beginning at elementary and even preschool levels.
“Three or four years of study at high school level may indeed help to raise SAT verbal scores,” Palma continued, “but certainly it will not result in the level of communicative proficiency envisioned by the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning.”
Palma recommended that in coming weeks the district form a committee, including Merrick Spanish teachers Toni Allen and Jackie Geltman, other instructors, parents and an education professor with experience in training foreign language teachers, who would be a paid consultant. The superintendent said the committee should first clarify the FLES program’s purpose, and then the district could make changes as necessary.
