| There are several things that are notable when entering Frank Allis Elementary School on Madison's east side. One is the sign welcoming people to Frank Allis Elementary School. The other is the sign right beside it, equally as large, that welcomes people to Nuestro Mundo Community School -- in Spanish. This duality is symbolic of what Nuestro Mundo is all about and the relationship the two schools have. Nuestro Mundo is a charter school that is legally separate from Frank Allis, although it is physically within the building that houses Frank Allis. As it turns out, Frank Allis was the perfect place for Nuestro to be established. It had a relatively large pool of native Spanish-speaking students and it had a principal dedicated to doing what was right with the students. It is the attitude that Chris Hodge, Frank Allis' principal and Gareth "Gary" Diaz Zehrbach bring to their profession that has allowed the two schools to exist in the same space. Hodge knew what needed to be done because of her experience at La Follette High School with the school within a school concept. If she failed to cooperate, Nuestro may have been dead in the water. "What Gary and I have tried to do from the start is to make this experience as seamless as possible, knowing there were going to be some curricular differences," Hodge said. "But we have worked very hard to model for teachers, to model for the Frank Allis community that the school is a part of the Allis community. I really wanted to make it feel like when Allis or Nuestro parents were to walk into the building, they would feel like they are in a school community even though we know they are two schools." While it is difficult to physically discern where Frank Allis ends and Nuestro begins, once you enter the classroom, you know you are in Nuestro. The children, regardless of their ethnic background, are speaking Spanish with each other and with their teacher. It is an experience like no other in Madison's schools. While it was primarily the Latino community that fought for the Madison Metropolitan School Board to approve Nuestro several years ago, it isn't a Latino classroom. "We have students form all backgrounds," Zehrbach said. "That's something that is misperceived by some people in the sense they think we are a school for only Latino children. Or they think we are a school only for students who don't speak English. That is completely not true. We are a free public school for any student. So we have Black students; we have Latino students; we have White students; and we have Asian students. We have students who speak Spanish. We have students who don't speak Spanish. We have students who speak other languages too." The students -- all of them -- speak Spanish routinely in the classroom, 90 percent of the time. There isn't a Spanish class that is taught. Spanish is embedded in the every day classroom experience. "The beauty of our program is that the students learn together for the entire time," Zehrbach emphasized. "They're not separated. In other schools, the Spanish-speaking Latino students are in their own classroom together. They aren't able to interact with students from other backgrounds. The same is true for those other students at the school. They aren't getting to interact with the Spanish-speaking Latino students. And so, it's one thing I am really proud of for our school and what is great about our dual language model is that the students who wouldn't be together are together. That is so important for us in terms of our goals for creating a multicultural society beyond Nuestro." Therefore, the students use Spanish no matter what they are working on. "Our students are being taught mathematics in Spanish and at the same standards," Zehrbach emphasized. "We don't have a separate set of curriculum that we pick the easy parts out of. We use the same standards that you will find at the surrounding schools. But we do it through a second language. And the students get it. The most effective way to learn language is through a real setting. They are learning the content at the same time they are learning a different language. That's the effective way to learn a language because it is real. It isn't fake." Obviously, not all of the students have the same Spanish proficiency. Some are native speakers and others are learning it at Nuestro for the first time. "Some students in their head might be thinking something in English, but they're able to produce it into Spanish," Zehrbach said. "So it's not that every student out can automatically cognate or think in Spanish or the second language. But they are able to produce it. And they are still young. They still have to think about it. But over the course of the full program, meaning k-5, those students are going to be very proficient when they finish. For instance, last year, the first graders dialogued about Martin Luther King Day and liberty in the classroom. This was all in Spanish. We had native speakers and non-native speakers having a wonderful conversation and there wasn't a word of English spoken." Nuestro is a dual language immersion program. That means while the classes begin in kindergarten with 90 percent Spanish and 10 percent English, by the fifth gade, it will be roughly 50/50. "The students who are not native Spanish speakers are learning to read and write first in Spanish just like the other students," Zehrbach said. "Then, just like everyone else, they will learn how to read and write in English in the third grade. We do that because of Second Language Acquisition Theory. It's not going to happen in six months. That's why we do a foundation of three years in Spanish and then in that fourth year, we start the transition into the English." Zehrbach is quick to point out that it is a dual language immersion program where both languages are respected. "I believe English is super important and my family at Nuestro realizes it is important," Zehrbach said. "However, for us, it is equally as important that students add on another language. So, for our Spanish speakers, they are going to add on English. And for our native English speakers, they are going to add on Spanish. We value both languages equally here. We're not saying one is more important than the other. We believe students do better in Spanish in the end by having more Spanish in the beginning. But we believe we are sending a message as well that Spanish is important for us because the majority of the academic day in k-2 is in Spanish. The students learn it is equally important. It's not more important, but it is equally important. We don't look at English in a different light." The dual language immersion quality of Nuestro has spilled over to its parents group, which experiences a high level of parental participation regardless of the student's ethnic or cultural background. "Even at our parent meetings, for instance, which are once per month, we conduct our parent meetings in Spanish," Zehrbach said. "Our English speakers use translation equipment. It's almost like the UN a little bit. We have a simultaneous translation going on. We have an interpreter and the English-speaking parents have headsets and they are listening to what is going on. In the same respect, we are bringing those populations of parents together whereas before, there might have been situations where different parent groups met at different times. There are benefits to that. But we are trying to do something a little different. We're trying to bring not only the students, but also the families together and have the families be able to interact and dialogue with each other. That's a multicultural aspect to our school as well." Currently, Nuestro has 147 students in its k-2 classrooms. During the next few years, it will expand to the third to fifth grades. It hasn't had any problem filling its classrooms. Approximately 60-70 students who apply are turned away each year form its kindergarten classes. And students aren't added in the later grade levels because the students need the dual language foundation. While Zehrback said he leaves it up to the school board to decide what lessons it can gain from Nuestro, he is very happy with what he is witnessing. "We hope we have success and we hope that people will see our success," Zehrbach said. "For me -- this is my own personal point of view -- I hope all children get the opportunities to have multicultural and additive linguistic educational environments." In today's global economy, Nuestro Mundo could be a sign of things to come in terms of how America's children are taught and learn other languages. |
| Nuestro Mundo Community School A multicultural learning environment for all by Jonathan Gramling |
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| Gareth "Gary" Diaz Zehrbach is the principal of Nuestro Mundo charter school. |
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| Homepage Nov. 29, 2006 Issue |