ROCHELLE – Rochelle Elementary District 231 leaders reported continued growth in bilingual and dual language programming during a special report to the school board Tuesday night, with Language Services Director Celeste Canfield saying the district currently serves 348 English learner students, most of whom are enrolled in the dual language program, and noting expanding grade level access, increasing cultural diversity, and strong proficiency benchmarks as the program prepares students for middle and high school coursework.
“Typically we have had some of those native speakers come from Mexico, whereas now we have other countries such as Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala, Peru, and Spain represented. So we really have a special mix of students that are Spanish speaking now enrolled. And so we also get to embed some of that within our curriculum, and they get to see some of their cultures represented in our program as well, ” Canfield said.
