JANESVILLE — Foreign languages in elementary school? That’s a question for the Janesville School Board when it meets Tuesday.
The board will be asked to approve a planning process for an “Elementary World Language Charter School” when it meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Educational Services Center, 527 S. Franklin St.
A thumbs-up from the board would not necessarily mean a commitment to fund a new school, but it could lead to a funding vote later on.
The proposal is the outgrowth of a yearlong study of options for adding a “critical” language or languages to the district’s foreign-language offerings.
Now, most students begin taking French, German or Spanish in seventh grade. A small number of gifted students in the Challenge Program have started learning Chinese in recent years, starting in fourth grade.
Chinese also is offered to a small group of high school students at the Janesville Academy for International Studies.
If the board approves, a planning team would work this school year and then apply for a charter-school planning grant from the state Department of Public Instruction in June. Another year of planning would follow. The school would open in September 2010.
The school might be located in one of the existing elementary schools, but that’s not certain said Donna Behn, director of curriculum and instruction.
While nothing is decided, Behn said the school could teach three foreign languages. The languages have not been decided, but Behn said the results of a parent survey last year show strong preference for Spanish and Chinese, Behn said.
After that, the strongest contenders in the survey were French, German and Japanese.
Students at the charter school would continue to study all the other required subjects, such as math, English and science. So the challenge would be fitting foreign language instruction into an already crowded curriculum.
Behn said one way around that problem would be to integrated language studies into art, music, physical education, social studies or other subjects.
Typically, if the state approves a planning grant, the state follows up with a grant that would pay startup costs.
Several board members have strongly supported the addition of a language that is outside the standard European language options. At the same time, board members are wary of added costs.
If an elementary language school is established, the next question is what language options the district could offer those students in middle and high school, Behn said.
The board on Tuesday will be asked to approve the formation of a planning team. Members would include a teacher and parent from each school, four community members who are interested in “world languages,” one or two elementary principals and several other district staff members.
The planning team would begin meeting this month and present a final report to the board in May 2009.
Some local religious schools teach Spanish to elementary students, and several public school districts around the state have started doing the same in recent years.