By Marsha Sutton
After running out of time at their May 28 school board meeting, trustees for the Del Mar Union School District resumed their meeting on June 11 and began where they left off – with a discussion of the new Spanish language program proposed by Del Mar Heights School for this fall.
All public comment was heard on May 28, so the June 11 board meeting started with board discussion of the item. Debate among board members lasted nearly two hours and concluded with an anguished 3-2 vote to delay the program.
“This has been a very controversial issue,” said interim superintendent Janet Bernard.
The issue has fractured the Del Mar community since the program’s approval by the school board back in January.
Both Del Mar Heights and Del Mar Hills Academy, the two DMUSD schools located west of Interstate 5, share a common boundary and compete for kindergarten through sixth-grade students.
Demographic studies indicate that the Hills/Heights attendance area will generate about 100 kindergartners each year for at least the next eight years – which makes five classes of 20 students each, for the two schools.
The Spanish program proposed by the Heights would have provided one hour of Spanish instruction twice a week to two kindergarten classes and 45 minutes of Spanish four days a week to two first-grade classes. Called Spanish Discovery, the program also required two K and two first-grade classes without the Spanish component – making four classes per grade level. Of the two Spanish kindergarten classes, one was to be composed of students from west of I-5 and one with students living east of I-5.
It was the kindergarten portion of Spanish Discovery that upset many Hills parents, because kindergarten enrollment to date for this fall gives the Heights four kindergarten classes but leaves the Hills with only two. Worries about possible school closure should enrollment dip too low has panicked many parents and staff from the Hills and caused them to become alarmed at the imbalance – even though one of the Heights’ four kindergarten classes was to be made up entirely of students from east of I-5.
What began as quiet unrest soon spiraled into a major controversy, one that spilled over into DMUSD schools east of the freeway where some Carmel Valley parents began to take notice and express concern about the program’s costs.
But cost concerns took a back seat to enrollment numbers when the district provided information showing that the same number of additional teachers had been budgeted for this coming year, with or without the Spanish program, and that costs for Spanish instructional materials were to be absorbed entirely by the Heights community through grants and private donations.
Bernard began the meeting by informing the board that five options had been developed in the two weeks since the prior meeting on May 28. Whether it was legal for the board to review fresh options without allowing input from the public on the new alternatives was not discussed.
Heights principal Wendy Wardlow explained the first four options, and then Hills principal Laurie Francis was asked to discuss the fifth option. The five options were:
- Option A: Continue with the Spanish Discovery program for kindergarten and first grade, as approved by the board on Jan. 23.
- Option B: Offer 3.5 kindergarten classes and 3.5 first-grade classes, with two Spanish Discovery classes in each grade. This option creates a combination kindergarten/first-grade class and redirects some enrollment from the Heights to the Hills.
- Option C: Implement only the kindergarten portion of Spanish Discovery as originally approved, and drop the first-grade portion.
- Option D: Delay the entire program.
- Option E: Limit the Heights to three kindergarten classes, all three Spanish Discovery.
Although Option D, to delay the program, was eventually chosen by a divided board, a great deal of debate preceded the vote.
Option B emerged as an alternative after a lengthy meeting attended by Bernard, board president Annette Easton, Wardlow and Francis. After laboriously hammering out the details, all four initially felt it was a viable option. But eventually it was dismissed.
“There was a feeling that this model did not meet the original intent of Option A,” Bernard explained.
“Our teachers carefully analyzed the proposal,” said Wardlow, indicating that her staff ultimately felt it was not a workable solution. Besides concerns that it might be too complicated and costly to administer, some teachers felt uneasy approving a plan without having enough time to thoroughly understand its impact.
Wardlow said she and her staff have engaged in “deep thinking and soul-searching” about the Spanish program, and she acknowledged that there are valid reasons for concern.
“If Spanish is causing to tear this district apart, my recommendation is to delay implementation,” she said.
An important consideration when the program was designed, said Wardlow, was that it not negatively impact the Hills, which she said she has the “utmost respect” for.
When asked by board member Janet Lamborghini to rank the five options, Wardlow struggled for a moment, saying, “I love this district.” She then said her first choice would be to delay implementation (Option D), followed by starting the program with just kindergarten only (Option C). Regarding Option E, she said, “I don’t know how we could pull it together.”
Wardlow said healing the rift between the two schools was paramount and would move forward only when everyone could get behind the program. “We want to do something that is going to be the pride of the district,” she said. “And we want to do it by being good team players.”
Despite her enrollment concerns, Francis said her last choice would be to delay the program. “We really want the Spanish Discovery program to be launched there,” she told the board. “My school does not want to be responsible for another school not launching this program. I can’t believe that this is insurmountable.”
Both Wardlow and Francis were conciliatory and solicitous of one another and pleaded for their communities to come together. Both were hopeful the program could be salvaged, even huddling together in the back of the room with a few teachers during the discussions to see if a last-minute deal could be worked out.
Bernard said the board could not foresee the negative impact on the Hills when trustees approved the program back in January. She reluctantly supported delaying implementation, saying all options had been exhausted.
“This is a very difficult recommendation for me because I’m such a proponent,” she said. “It’s distressed everyone. I don’t see how we can move forward.”
A program is needed that can bring the Hills and Heights communities back together, Bernard said.
A K-3 and 4-6 Grade Configuration
Bernard suggested that the tension between the two schools pointed to a larger issue. “Do we need to have two schools in competition with one another?” she asked. She raised the possibility of configuring one school for grades K-3 and the other for grades 4-6, an idea that has been proposed periodically in the past.
“I think the time has come for that to happen,” she said.
Lamborghini embraced the suggestion, saying that with a K-3/4-6 grade configuration, “this problem would go away.” She favored a task force to explore the idea – “especially if this solves the problem of how to get language into our schools.”
Other board members also responded positively to the idea.
About the present dilemma, Easton said to Bernard, “I share your dismay, because there is a lot of community support [for the Spanish program]. It’s unfortunate that we’ve created a wide chasm.”
Easton recommended delaying the program, saying she hesitated to impose any of the alternative options brought forth in the past two weeks without thorough engagement and support from staff at the sites.
Of foreign language instruction, board member Steven McDowell said, “It’s a building block that needs to be in place. I’m disappointed with the way this is heading.”
“I’m comfortable with delaying the first grade because the numbers aren’t there,” said board member Katherine White, referring to the enrollment of only 70 rather than the required 80 students for first-grade Spanish Discovery this fall at the Heights. “But we have the numbers for kindergarten.”
White agreed with McDowell and objected to delaying a program “that met the criteria we set up in January.”
“I share Steven’s concerns,” she said. “Delaying means we’re further behind. It’s a one-year commitment. We’ll come back after a year. To throw all that away at this point in time is very disappointing to me.”
“When the program was approved in January, we didn’t have the demographics,” Easton said. “We thought we’d have three [classes] at the Hills and four at the Heights.”
New board member Doug Perkins said he thought Option B was the best compromise. Since that was rejected, he supported delaying the program.
White said she sympathized with the Hills’ enrollment concerns but didn’t understand how cancelling the Spanish program gives the Hills its third kindergarten class, since there would be three classes at the Heights and still only two at the Hills.
“There’s so much attached to two [kindergarten classes] symbolically,” Francis said. “While one school’s building enrollment and one school’s losing enrollment, it doesn’t feel good.” But she said she “could live with it for a year if we could go back to the drawing board” during that time and try to find a solution.
The meeting was sparsely attended compared to the previous meeting two weeks ago when the room was packed with several hundred individuals, many of whom asked to speak on the issue. This time, the board addressed a crowd of perhaps a few dozen, several of whom were teachers from Del Mar Heights.
When White asked the Heights teachers if they agreed with their principal and supported delaying the program, first-grade teacher Susie Lampe, referring to the kindergarten-only option, said, “We’re all in favor of Option C. As a staff, we support Option C.”
But Easton was not persuaded to move forward. “Looking at this from a district-wide perspective, I don’t think we would be able to have conversations [that] would allow the communities to heal,” she said. “The best opportunity for healing is to delay it.”
“This is literally tearing us apart,” Wardlow said. “We were so excited, passionate. But we felt directly attacked. I’d love to see us go with Option C, [but] I’m afraid it would be misperceived. I could cry right now.”
Arguing in favor of Option C, White called a delay “a lost opportunity” to provide Del Mar’s children with Spanish instruction. “Sometimes you have to make tough decisions,” she said. “We aren’t going to make everybody happy.”
Breaking the vote into two parts, White motioned to delay the first-grade implementation of Spanish Discovery, which passed 5-0.
Easton then made a motion to delay the kindergarten portion of Spanish Discovery, which passed 3-2, with McDowell and White opposed.
“I’m really firm on the word ‘delay’ and not ‘cancel’,” Easton said.
After the vote was taken, Wardlow said she was sad but that it was the correct decision.
Francis disagreed. “I think they should have moved forward,” she said. “I don’t think this solves the problem.”
“There were five options,” commented Kerry Traylor, incoming Hills PTA president. “The board chose the path of least resistance. I think we could have worked this out for both parties. It was possible. The kids have lost.”
When asked if the board traded one unhappy community for another, Easton said, “I don’t think this was a decision to heal the community. But it gives us the best opportunity to heal. There were no winners.”
