Schools demand $300M to teach students English

More than 100 superintendents from across the state, including many from East Valley school districts, converged on the lawn of the state Capitol on Wednesday to push for an additional $300 million to educate English-language learners.

The administrators are concerned about the cost to implement the requirements of a law passed by the Legislature in 2006. The law was designed to put Arizona in compliance with a court case filed in 1992, Flores v. Arizona, which found Arizona schools were not providing adequate English instruction. The law will require districts to identify, through a test, children who do not speak English, pull them out of their regular classes and teach them English for four hours each day until they can test out of the program.

“This is not an immigration issue,” said Greg Wyman, Apache Junction Unified School District superintendent and president of the Arizona School Administrators, the group that organized the meeting. He said children in Arizona schools speak a variety of languages, including American Indian languages, Russian, Sudanese and Serbian — and this is not just about Spanish speakers.

“All of these children are affected,” he said. “This is about English-language development.”

He said schools “are determined to implement the program” because they believe it is important, but they want to be sure it’s funded.

“We have a real concern with the costs associated with this,” he said.

Administrators say, based on calculations submitted from 70 school districts, the law will cost them $300 million more than they currently receive in funding for English-language instruction. Schools are required to file paperwork with the Arizona Department of Education by Feb. 7, at which time the department will make decisions about the budget requests from districts.

The law requires the Legislature to fully fund the increased costs to districts. But the issue has not yet been part of budget discussions.

In a year when the state faces a nearly $1 billion budget shortfall, administrators said they wanted to be proactive in making a case for needed money.

In the Mesa Unified School District, which has 72,000 students, 11,000 are English-language learners, said Superintendent Debra Duvall.

Mesa will need 100 additional teachers and 31 classrooms to implement the program.

“I’m not sure those teachers are available to Mesa and all of my colleagues behind me,” she said.

Camille Casteel, superintendent of Chandler Unified School District, said the timeline to implement the new requirements is what concerns her most.

“We’ll need to restructure classrooms, change the delivery method; training needs to be offered,” she said.

Many superintendents who were present at the press conference arrived at the Capitol early to meet with legislators and explain the specific needs of their district. Superintendents from Tempe Union High School District and the Tempe and Kyrene elementary districts said they found their representatives to be receptive to their message.

Casteel said she’s glad legislators are willing to meet with schools and hear their concerns.

“They’re listening,” she said. “Hopefully they’ll take what we’re saying to heart and buy us some time.”