Yorkville SD 115 plans to expand dual language program

YORKVILLE – School District 115′s dual language program is recognized as one of the most successful and innovative of academic efforts happening in Yorkville classrooms.

The bilingual program teaches those whose primary language is something other than English – usually Spanish – in both languages.

The K-8 program helps students assimilate while gaining the advantages of speaking more than one language.

Now, school administrators are looking at taking the bilingual program to the next level: high school.

The Yorkville School Board later this month is expected to approve an expansion of the program for high school freshman at the start of the 2022-23 school year.

The plan is for the program to be extended by another grade-level each year as the first group matriculates through high school, from their freshman through their senior years.

Yorkville High School Associate Principal of Teaching and Learning Kelley Hren told a school board committee recently that there are 11 eighth-grade students in the program who will be freshman when classes start again in the fall.

However, the class cohorts coming up behind that group will be increasingly larger, Hren said. There are now 41 dual language students in the current crop of fifth-graders, she said.

Hren presented school board members with a four-year high school curriculum outline for the bilingual program.

For freshman, the curriculum includes an advanced placement Spanish language class.

“We’re confident our students will perform well,” Hren said.

Over four years of high school the students also would take biology, chemistry and history courses in Spanish. There also would be an advanced placement Spanish literature course.