ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
The USD 480 school board made rather quick work of its heavy agenda at its most recent meeting Monday evening.
Among the many items seeking approval Monday evening was Dual Language curriculum for Prairie View Elementary School.
“Last year, the board approved the kindergarten and 1st grade Amplify curriculum to transition during the 2025-2026 school year. The proposed curriculum adoption is for 2nd through 5th grade,” Assistant Superintendent of Academics Dr. Maria Gomez-Rocque said. “The implementation of the adoption would begin the fall of 2026 through the spring of 2030. The curriculum cost is $117,139.26 and the professional development is $17,800, for a total of $134,939.26. This curriculum includes English CKLA and Caminos for the dual language speakers. This transition started out with the kindergarteners and 1st graders, which is logical so they’ll be prepared when they get into 2nd grade next year. Originally, we had all of the building moving into the two-way schoolwide dual language, and then we had the presentation. They came back with some changes for the dual language program, so instead of going to two-way immersion schoolwide, we’re looking at moving into one-way dual language and decreasing the number of teachers teaching the dual language – the Spanish component – to where we have two English teachers and two Spanish teachers for students in kindergarten through 3rd grade, and then with the 4th and 5th graders, we’ll have one Spanish teacher and two English teachers. That means if students want to opt out of the program, they’ll have a track within their boundaries to attend the English instruction through CKLA, as well as the other content.”
Gomez-Rocque said multiple changes have needed to be made with the program.
“Some time ago, the board did approve a dual language teacher position to help expand the Dual Language program in the middle schools, and we had a bilingual task force that came together in the spring semester,” Gomez-Rocque said. “Unfortunately, we were unable to secure a teacher. The staffing is the hard part when you’re working to continue a Dual Language program into the secondary schools. Right now, we’re having to focus on building support and professional development for the current Dual Language teachers because as was mentioned at the last board meeting, we started out with 33 certified teachers, and we’re now down to 11. We have to really support the Dual Language teachers and build that rapport so we are successful in teaching the Dual Language curriculum. That was the purpose of bringing in a representative from Kansas State University, who will help us do some planning for the next three to five years so we can maintain and sustain the program.”
Gomez-Rocque said a key difference between the two-way immersion and the one-way immersion is population.
“We’re going to focus on English learners, the Spanish speakers and bilingual students in that one-way immersion, whereas with the two-way immersion, we were focusing on bringing in English speakers learning Spanish,” Gomez-Rocque said. “However, it’s become too difficult with the staffing we have, so we’re going to focus on developing the one-way program. Maybe in the future, once we get all the necessary structures and systems in place, we can bring in the two-way immersion, but that’s obviously a decision for some point in the future.”
After some more discussion, the board ultimately voted 6-0 (with board member Kaylee Ruiz-Lopez absent) to approve the adoption of the Amplify dual language curriculum and professional development for Prairie View Elementary School in the amount of $134,939.26.
In other new business, the board also approved the renewal from Diligent in the amount of $11,500 for the board’s meeting software and also awarded general stock and art supply bids. The board also approved tuition agreements for Kayla Baeza, Melissa Hilditch, Kylie Eagan and Ciro Rodriguez and Andrea Ortiz, Sheldon White, Lesley Melendez and Dunia Escarsega for the Registered Teacher Apprenticeship program. The board also approved the adoption of the upgrade of the Danielson Teacher Evaluation Framework to the 2022 version and professional development from Amplify for the elementary schools in the amount of $30,600.
The Special Education department also had a few requests approved, including the position of a teacher of the deaf/hard of hearing for the district, an additional Speech Language Pathologist position, an additional Special Education Instructional Coach position and a District Behavior Specialist position. The board also approved a proposal from Cultivate Education for $51,750 for support for the district’s behavior teams.
