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Teachers and parents urge district to preserve bilingual interventionist and DLI supports
Summary
Teachers, interventionists and parents told the board that removal of a bilingual interventionist and reductions to Spanish-language intervention and summer programming threaten the district's Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program and risk misidentifying bilingual students for special education.
Multiple teachers, bilingual specialists and parents asked the Board of Education to keep bilingual intervention services at Ceres Elementary and to restore structural supports for the district’s Dual Language Immersion program.
Elizabeth Gamboa, bilingual interventionist at Ceres Elementary, said careful linguistic assessment prevents misidentifying bilingual students as having learning disabilities. "Without this level of Spanish expertise, the student could have been easily misidentified for special education," she told the board.
Parents and students echoed the call. Damien Hernandez, a DLI student graduating this year, asked the board to consider the impact of cuts on younger siblings and future DLI learners. Dean Yanagihara, speaking as a Ceres parent, said the district appears to be reassigning the bilingual interventionist to another school, Laurel, and asked how the district will assure families that bilingual students’ needs will be met.
Teachers described several program changes: reductions to intervention aides, a directive that summer school be taught in English with Spanish bridging rather than in Spanish, leadership meetings that have lost district-level attendance, and a reported decision to move the Ceres bilingual interventionist to another site.
Lisa Fragoso, a third‑grade teacher at Ceres, estimated roughly 250 students in the DLI program and warned that cutting Spanish-language intervention could harm retention and program quality. "If half our school is dual immersion... that's over $6 million that the district is getting from just the retention of students choosing a bilingual program," she said in a calculation the board may review for accuracy.
Speakers asked the district to provide a districtwide dual‑language specialist coordinator, restore Spanish-language intervention and summer programming, and to ensure that hires for intervention roles include Spanish-language expertise. The board agreed to agendize a student use of technology policy and other policy items; it did not take immediate action on staffing assignments during the meeting.
