The proposed changes have the backing of the school board, but budgetary constraints could put a crimp in the plans.

 

Faced with dwindling revenue and uncertain state aid, the district is considering layoffs to help balance its 2010-11 budget, which must be approved by June 30.

The language expansion would involve hiring a second bilingual teacher for the immersion program, which began this year at Wharton Elementary School.

 

Since the fall, a class of kindergarten students — a mix of native English and Spanish speakers — has been learning language arts, science and social studies in Spanish and other subjects in English.

 

Hiring a second teacher would enable Wharton to expand the program — the first of its kind in Lancaster County — to first grade next year.

 

Studies have shown that dual-language immersion programs are more effective than traditional instruction in improving English skills for non-native speakers and foreign language skills for English speakers.

 

Students enrolled in such programs also tend to be more academically proficient than their monolingual peers.

 

SDL plans to expand its Chinese curriculum by adding a second instructor through the grant-funded Teachers of Critical Languages Program.

TCLP will pay for most of the salary and expenses of the teacher, who is from China.

SDL currently has another teacher from China provided through a partnership with the College Board and the Chinese government.

 

Under that program, the district will spend about $34,500 next year for salary, housing, transportation and training for the teacher, said Kim Marucci, SDLs coordinator of social studies and world languages.

 

Under the TCLP program, she said, the district would pay just $12,288.

SDL currently offers two levels of Chinese instruction at McCaskey High School and Chinese classes in kindergarten and first grade at Wharton and Ross elementary schools and seventh grade at Reynolds Middle School.

 

The additional teacher would enable the district to add a third level of instruction at the high school, along with Chinese classes for second-graders at Ross and Wharton.

 

At Reynolds, Chinese would beoffered to eighth-graders.

The proposed expansion of the Chinese and Spanish-English immersion programs is strongly supported by the SDL school board, said Richard Caplan, chairman of the boards student achievement committee.

 

But whether the district can afford to add the new classes remains to be seen.

"Both of those programs are good ones and ones that should merit our strong support, but that is subject to the caveat of financing," he said.

 

In addition to Chinese and Spanish, SDL offers world language instruction in French, German and Latin.