Adelante Charter School is entering its 21st year offering bilingual education, and the Santa Barbara Unified School District is poised to renew its charter for another five years.
The school board gave favorable reviews of the program at Tuesday’s board meeting. The board is set to formally approve the renewal on June 25.
“I am a strong supporter of your school and the magic that exists there and what you can just feel when you are on campus,” board member Laura Capps said.
Adelante formed 20 years ago, under the original name César Estrada Chávez Dual Language Immersion Charter School.
The school serves to develop biliterate, multicultural students in kindergarten through sixth grade. Adelante is the only school in Santa Barbara that offers instruction through two languages. Its goal is bilingual proficiency by sixth grade for both English and Spanish speakers.
“Adelante is biliteracy and justice for all,” Principal David Bautista said.
Of the school’s student population, 83.8 percent are Latino, 14.5 percent are white, 63.4 percent are classified as socially disadvantaged and 45.5 percent are English language learners.
The school has an enrollment cap of 290, with 50 to 100 regularly on a wait list. The school district overall has 8,937 Latino students.
Superintendent Cary Matsuoka said he has had the opportunity to get to know the Adelante community very well during the past several months.
“Typically, the charter scene has been a challenging one, but it’s the opposite here in Santa Barbara,” Matsuoka said.
Adelante is housed on property next to Franklin Elementary School, 1102 E. Yanonali St. Adelante’s charter renewal request includes an expansion plan. School and district officials have been meeting to discuss options for expanding to pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.
Adelante provides a 90/10 Spanish and English immersion program. The amount of English instruction increases as the students rise in the grades. By fifth grade, the ratio of English and Spanish instruction is 50/50.
“I, too, am a proponent of your school,” board member Jacqueline Reid said. “I believe it is vitally important the work that you do and to have dual immersion programs, the bilingual qualities, the bicultural, for students to see themselves mirrored in the curriculum, all that you are doing around the social justice framework and equity.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
