Edith Garcia’s heart was beating fast as she walked up to the podium. This May, as she was finishing 5th-grade, Edith and her two older sisters decided to speak out at a DeKalb School Board meeting.
“It makes us feel like we're not good enough because we can't speak English,” she said. “Sometimes, we even get told we can't do things because of it. It's like we're being held back just because of the language we speak.”
The Garcia sisters weren’t alone. Other current and former DeKalb bilingual program students and teachers spoke at the meeting. They said there’s a lack of resources for bilingual students when it comes to everything from bullying, to translation services, to mental health but -- overall -- there’s often a sense of isolation, especially for students who primarily speak Spanish.
Just over 16% of DeKalb students are English-learners. That’s more than 1,000 kids. And it’s not even solely Spanish -- upwards of 80 languages are spoken by DeKalb students.
Veronica Garcia-Martinez is a bilingual teacher at Littlejohn Elementary School.
“Recently, I've noticed more and more a lack of [bilingual] counselors and psychologists within the buildings," she said. "My students have needs. They have the need to speak to someone."
Kyle Gerdes is DeKalb’s director of student services. He says the district has a solid number of bilingual staff, although staffing is stronger at the high school level.
“I don't think every building has a Spanish speaking clinician," said Gerdes. "We try to do that. But I think our schools that have the highest number of students that are bilingual is where we try to prioritize first. If a student has a need, and they're in a building where they don't have a bilingual clinician, we have other ways that we can ensure that student has the ability to communicate in their native language to our staff.”
He says they’re also working on bilingual recruitment efforts, including a state grant and partnership with Northern Illinois University that’s specifically for school psychologists. The district also recruits from Spain and goes to job fairs in Puerto Rico.
The purported lack of bilingual staff also translates to, well, translation. Imagine you’re a 5th-grader in math class. You’re bilingual, but some students in your class don’t speak much English at all. So, during class, you’re not just trying to understand the math lesson for yourself…you also have to help teach your Spanish-speaking friends who don’t understand what the teacher is saying.
Edith Garcia says that’s exactly what happens to her.
“Sometimes I don't get it myself, and I ask for help from [the teacher]," she said. "And then I help the other students once I'm done getting help so then I can explain everything to them."
Eduardo Quiroz will be in 7th-grade next year. He says he has to ask his teachers if he can get up and help his Spanish-speaking friends sitting on the other side of the classroom.
“They actually talk to me across the room," he said. "The teacher won't let me get up, so I just help them from the spot [where] I am."
The district has a co-teaching model at the middle school, so there should be bilingual specialists, or a bilingual homeschool liaison, assisting English-speaking teachers. But the students say there are often gaps they have to fill in themselves.
The students also say they’d like their cultures to be celebrated more and in authentic ways. And they talked about experiencing persistent racist bullying for being Hispanic. That’s actually what inspired Eduardo -- then still in 6th grade -- to speak at the school board meeting.
“My Mexican friends were getting bullied because of their culture," he said, "and I just needed a change because it couldn't be like that."
The bilingual students say these issues pile up and make them feel isolated from the rest of the school. AJ Crook is the DeKalb School District’s multilingual programs coordinator. She says they know that can happen, which is why they’ve been changing the dual language program over the past few years.
In fall 2020, they started replacing their one-way dual language program with a two-way program. “One way” is the traditional system. English learners starting school spent 90% of their day learning in Spanish and the other 10% learning English. They’d slowly ramp it up to 50-50 by 4th grade. Students can test out of the program by passing an English proficiency exam.
One-way bilingual program students are pretty much only in class with other bilingual students. When you add in the language barrier, Crook says it makes sense why they may feel separate, but Crook says their program is very different now.
“With the two-way," said Crook, "you mix English speakers with English learners."
All English learners are part of it, but English-speaking students can join now, via lottery, and learn Spanish at the same time. Right now, the two-way program is available for elementary school students up to 3rd grade. It’s expanding to 4th-grade next year, and the plan is to eventually get it all the way through high school.
Garcia-Martinez, the DeKalb bilingual teacher, says the two-way program is great and helps break down those walls, but it’s not everywhere yet.
“If you go to the grade that doesn't have that, which is fourth grade and up right now," she said, "and you just go to the playground, you have these kids that self-segregate because that's how it's been since the beginning."
So far, Crook says the two-way program has been a success, both socially and academically.
“Our third graders," said Crook, "were already outperforming our monolingual English third graders in English math."
Garcia-Martinez thinks that’s good news too, but she’s still thinking about all of the students in middle and high school who didn’t get that and still feel isolated from many of their peers.
“That's still a big population of our student body that are not getting those same benefits.” she said. “There has to be some kind of change. What, we're just going to wait another eight years, so they phase out? We can't do that. We can't forget about those kids.”
Because they still need an inclusive school environment and support staff who can -- literally -- speak their language.
