AAPS to offer elementary language, BPFLI continues program

How does our program at Burns Park fit with the district's language initiative?

Thanks to over one hundred contributors and community supporters, the Burns Park Spanish language program is fully funded for the 2008-2009 school year. This year, grades one through five will receive Spanish instruction in the classroom during three, twenty minute, sessions a week. The Burns Park Foreign Language Initiative will launch fundraising for the 2009-2010 school year beginning in mid-November and ending on January 31, 2009; we fundraise in advance to allow for curriculum planning and to provide job security for our Spanish teacher. We hope that you will consider supporting this valuable and unique program that provides world language instruction to all Burns Park students during the school day.

As many of you have already heard or read, the Ann Arbor Public Schools have partnered with the University of Michigan School of Education to provide instruction in world languages to elementary students. Beginning in September 2009, the partnership will offer Spanish language instruction to third graders in all twenty-one elementary schools; in September 2010, the program will expand Spanish instruction into the fourth and fifth grades, while continuing in third grade.

How does this impact Burns Park? The District recognizes that we have an established Spanish instruction program for grades one through five and they will not take away from our program. Instead, as they take over the instruction in grade three in 2009 and grades three, four and five in 2010, we will be able to continue fundraising to support language instruction in the grades the District is not teaching and therefore, maintain Spanish instruction at Burns Park in grades one through five. Put another way, in September 2009 the District program will provide Spanish instruction in grade three and BPFLI will provide Spanish instruction in grades one, two, four and five; in September 2010 the District program will provide Spanish instruction in grades three, four and five and BPFLI will provide Spanish instruction in grades one and two. Please see the table below for a summary.

Some families will question the need to fundraise to support Spanish instruction in the extra grades. The first year of the District’s program, continuation of our own program will be especially important as that year’s fourth and fifth graders have been studying Spanish since first grade and continued instruction will be beneficial. In the following years, providing Spanish instruction for our first and second graders will only increase the chance that they will reach our goal of language proficiency. Research shows that younger students are more receptive to the introduction of a second language and significantly more willing to use the language in a social setting than their older peers. The program provided by the District will start our students at the appropriate level in third grade given their advancement in language from studying during their first and second years.

Again we thank you for your past support of the Spanish program at Burns Park and hope that you will continue to support us in the future. Please look for fundraising materials to come home in mid-November. If you would like to learn more about the District’s world language program feel free to contact one of us or to contact the program directly at A2LP@umich.edu.

Burns Park Foreign Language Initiative
2201 Brockman Blvd.
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104
Contact: Helen Starman (734) 994-8553