Greece launches first year of dual-language kindergarten at English Village

Shauna Sweet, the district’s director of multilingual education, told the Greece Central School District Board of Education that the district has reintroduced a dual-language (two‑way bilingual) kindergarten at English Village and plans to add one grade level per year.

Sweet said the district enrolled 40 students across two bilingual kindergarten classes this fall and described the program as a “two way” model intended to make students “equally become bilingual, biliterate, bicultural, all while improving their academic achievement.” The district reported 17 of the 40 students use Spanish at home and 10 of those students were identified as English language learners.

The program returns to the district after an earlier bilingual effort ran from 2008 to 2017. Sweet told the board the district is moving deliberately to scale the program and follow New York guidance: "commissioner's regulation part 154 ... requires schools or districts to establish a new bilingual education program if 20 or more students who are English language learners speak the same language at the same grade level." She said Greece’s kindergarten subgroup currently has 19 Spanish‑speaking ELL students but that new enrollments could push the total to 20 this year.

Sweet described the instructional model, saying the two classrooms alternate language use so students receive core instruction in both languages daily. She also said the district is using American Reading Company (ARC) curricular materials in both languages and has a language and culture coach and a teacher-on-special-assignment to support program implementation and family outreach. "We have our first cohort of kindergarteners, who have begun class at English Village this fall, and the goal is to increase the program one grade level at a time," Sweet said.

Board members asked about measures of student achievement and program monitoring. Sweet listed multiple data sources the district will use, including the IRLA and its Spanish version, i‑Ready (available in Spanish for math), and a pre‑literacy oral language assessment (preLAS). She cautioned that research often shows bilingual-program impacts become most visible by third grade but said the district will track benchmark and oral‑language growth annually.

Board members praised the classroom visits and the district’s planning. Trustee Butler said, “it was so cool to see these students learning in Spanish and in English,” and asked to be kept updated on early assessment results as the program grows.

The presentation included plans for family outreach (a Latino family program for recruitment and engagement), a bilingual advisory committee, teacher coaching, and interdistrict school visits to study established programs. Sweet said instructional leaders and district staff are meeting regularly to coordinate scale‑up for first grade in the coming year.