Moving a popular dual language immersion program from one local elementary school to another would allow more students to enroll, New Hanover County Schools Superintendent Dr. Tim Markley said, and Dec. 1 the county’s Board of Education will decide if — and how — the transition should be implemented to address parents’ concerns.
The recommended proposal calls for the language immersion program to move from Forest Hills Global Elementary to Gregory School of Science, Math and Technology and grow to include the middle school level.
In the existing program, classes are taught half in English and half in Spanish with native speakers of both languages integrated. The students learn from each other while developing “higher levels of reasoning skills that transfer to critical thinking,” Markley said during a Nov. 19 meeting.
Moving the program would not only allow students to stay in the curriculum through eighth grade, it would also solve problems for both elementary schools, Markley explained.
The immersion program started at Forest Hills six years ago with one kindergarten class and has grown every year since. Now, the school is overcrowded. Meanwhile, Gregory’s enrollment has warned recently because it competes for students with Rachel Freeman School of Engineering, which offers a similar science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) program, Markley said.
If the board is in favor of the transition, it can either implement it immediately or gradually. Markley said he was in favor of “ripping off the Band-Aid,” and in doing so fixing Forest Hills’ overcrowding. Gregory’s STEM program would be gradually phased out, although that program’s unique equipment — iPads for all students and a broadcast room — would stay.
“For a third-grade student at Gregory in the STEM program, I’m not going to tell you that you can’t stay at Gregory and get STEM,” Markley said. “I’m going to support you in the STEM program in third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade.”
The more gradual implementation involves keeping the program at Forest Hills until those students matriculate out and introducing the program at Gregory only in kindergarten and sixth grade. That would eventually accomplish the same goal, Markley said, but students currently enrolled in the program at Forest Hills wouldn’t have to transfer to remain in the program.
Some Forest Hills parents would be willing to follow the program to Gregory, based on comments made in earlier board meetings. But Neil Anderson, a Wilmington City Council member who has a daughter in the program, was concerned removing the immersion program would affect other aspects of the school like the Parent Teacher Association and End-of-Grade Test scores.
“I worry about the heart and soul of the school being pulled out,” he said.
Gregory parent Christy Dukes said she wasn’t in favor of the language immersion program replacing the STEM curriculum, and wondered whether the school could offer both options. She said Gregory parents would be “very upset that the school is going to be going all immersion and not STEM.”
The board will also consider keeping the language immersion program at Forest Hills and creating a second program at Gregory, converting the entire Forest Hills into an immersion school or leaving the current programs as they are. Parents may comment during the Dec. 1 meeting.
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