Education

1. During the 200-2001 school year, D.C. Public Schools enrolled approximately 8,306 English language learners from 136 different countries, who speak 107 different languages.

2. The majority of English language learners in D.C. Public Schools (5,997) speak Spanish.

3. The number of Spanish speaking students enrolled in D.C. Public Schools has doubled since the 1988-1989 school year.

4. Approximately 20% of DCPS schools (33 schools) have Latino populations higher than 10 % of the total student body. At approximately half of the DCPS schools wit Latino populations over 10%, the Latino population actually exceeds 25%.

5. Only one school in the D.C. public school systems, Oyster Elementary School, offers a two-way bilingual program, which professional research has confirmed is superior to other bilingual instruction programs.

6. Teachers in schools with low enrollment by English language learners state that individual students in those schools receive less than 5 hours of bilingual instruction per week.

7. Some schools with large Latino student populations do not have any Spanish-speaking personnel available to communicate with parents. This lack of Spanish-speaking personnel appears to be a problem, for example, at Park View and Meyer Elementary Schools, which have Latino student populations 13% and 28% respectively.