District feels confident enough to accept applications for dual immersion program

Teachers, parents and staff packed a Downey Board of Education meeting last week. Photo by Alex Dominguez

DOWNEY — While the Downey Unified Board of Education still deliberates on the fate of two schools, DUSD has already started taking applications for a dual language academic program.

A new link on DUSD’s website homepage is offering information and the opportunity to apply for a new Global Language Academies of Downey (G.L.A.D.) program.

According to PR Coordinator Ashley Greaney, parents were surveyed in October 2017 in regards to Prop 58 specifically asking if they would be interested in a bilingual program in Downey Unified. Of the more than 650 parents who responded, 70 percent said that they would be interested in this type of program, with 89 percent saying they would select Spanish as the target language, Greaney said.

In addition, the district provided staff with a questionnaire, to which nearly 500 staff members provided feedback which trended to an interest in dual immersion programs.

“Although no location has been finalized, these two factors in combination with the Community Meetings at the elementary level in December, solidified this interested to the point that we felt comfortable moving forward with knowing we intended to begin a Dual Immersion program with the idea of starting in August of 2019,” Greaney wrote in an email.

“Since the Dual Immersion program continues to be well received, we do anticipate the Board will give final approval of a location in February and we will be able to actually begin the program in August as projected.

“Knowing we needed to act quickly before other districts started poaching our TK-K students, we began to advertise and accept applications for a projected implementation for the 2019-2020 school year.”

The submission period opened Jan. 7 and will continue through Feb. 15.

This comes at a time where the school district has been embroiled in controversy surrounding its potential plans for Sussman Middle School and Carpenter Elementary. While nothing has been approved as of yet, there have been discussions about the conversion of Carpenter to a dual immersion school and the possible closure, conversion, and reopening of Sussman to a six through 12 magnet school.

As it currently stands, Carpenter Elementary is the recommended location to house this program should it pass.