DeKalb High School and District 428’s elementary schools are revising their approach to teaching Spanish-speaking students.

The school board approved the curriculum changes for the 2004-’05 school year at its meeting March 15.

“There is a lot of research that indicates that study in your first language is very helpful to learning your second language,” Hawley said.

District 428 provides instruction for 4,483 students in DeKalb, Malta and Cortland. According to the district’s records, 8.4 percent of the students are Hispanic.

Principal Kellie Sanders of Littlejohn Elementary School, 1121 School St., said three of the eight elementary schools in the district are targeted for the change. Littlejohn Elementary School; Chesebro Elementary School, 900 E. Garden St.; and Jefferson Elementary School, 211 McCormick Drive, have a higher number of Hispanic students.

Currently, each elementary school has a different bilingual program. The new plan will unify the district’s approach to bilingual instruction.

Littlejohn Elementary School has bilingual classrooms for kindergartners and one for first and second graders combined, Sanders said.

Three existing classrooms at Littlejohn Elementary School may convert to bilingual rooms in which students would receive instruction in their native language all day, Sanders said. The district already has Spanish-proficient staff members to fill the positions.

Science and math would be the only classes taught in English, Sanders said.

At the elementary school level, most children aren’t capable of expressing science and math concepts in their native language and can be taught in English, Sanders said.

Sanders said she hopes science and math could be taught by teams of regular education teachers and native English-speaking students.

Integrating the classes hopefully would prevent Spanish-speaking students from feeling segregated, Sanders said.

The program will not cost the district any extra money because grants secured from the state would cover any costs, Sanders said.

Mary Hawley, assistant principal for Curriculum and Instruction, said DeKalb High School, 1515 S. Fourth St., will add one section of a Spanish class for Spanish speakers next year.

Hawley said the high school will offer a new course, Spanish for Spanish speakers, to address the needs of native Spanish speakers. Eleven percent of the high school’s 1,520 students are Hispanic, she said.

The course will develop Spanish speakers’ reading and grammar skills with a focus on literature and culture, Hawley said. Students will have to take a placement test for admittance into the course.