Glenwood Mandarin Program considerations and FLES implications
Shawna Catlett
Dear Dr. Trice and Members of the CHCCS Board of Education,
As the district’s Elementary World Language Lead Teacher for the past 16 years and a 30-year CHCCS educator, I am submitting this final comment regarding the relocation of Glenwood’s Mandarin programs. Having spent my career teaching in and helping shape this program, I feel a professional obligation to speak with candor before you cast your vote tonight.
I previously wrote to you recommending that Mandarin Dual Language and Mandarin FLES remain together at Rashkis. Information I learned this week about Option 2, specifically, that Spanish and Mandarin FLES are expected to “coexist” at Scroggs, makes that recommendation even more urgent.
1. Two FLES Languages at Scroggs Fundamentally Change the Program
Elementary school is not middle or high school. Young children do not select language electives. Operating Spanish and Mandarin FLES within one elementary school would require students to be assigned to separate language pathways and for those assignments to continue from year to year if students are to receive sequential language instruction.
Grade-level teams already spend significant time constructing classroom rosters based on multiple instructional and student needs: academic performance, Multilingual Learner services, special education support, general classroom composition. Adding language assignment creates another fixed constraint on that process. A student’s classroom placement would also have to account for whether that child must continue Spanish or Mandarin.
There are also basic questions about how such a model would operate. Would families choose Spanish or Mandarin? Would students be assigned? Would the two programs have equal enrollment? What happens when a child wants the language their friends are learning, or a family prefers the other pathway? How would those language assignments be maintained as classrooms are rebuilt each year?
These are not questions we currently create for elementary students at Scroggs or at any school district-wide. The Spanish FLES program at Scroggs is an established, schoolwide program. Introducing Mandarin FLES would mean dividing students into separate language experiences and maintaining those divisions over multiple years.
That also has implications for school culture. Separate language pathways create the potential for an unnecessary “us and them” dynamic among students and families. This is particularly concerning because CHCCS has already experienced a version of this at Glenwood and intentionally moved toward a unified language model.
2. Staffing and Master Scheduling Are Part of Program Design
FLES is not an isolated add-on. It is part of the elementary specials rotation alongside Art, Music, and PE and provides required planning time for classroom teachers. At Glenwood, Mr. Zhi Ma teaches Mandarin FLES to traditional, non-Dual Language classes as well as Cultural Enrichment to Dual Language classes. Simply put, Mandarin FLES and Cultural Enrichment also provide important release coverage for classroom teachers.
Separating Mandarin Dual Language and Mandarin FLES therefore affects far more than where students receive language instruction. It affects staffing assignments, specials rotations, teacher planning coverage, and the receiving schools’ master schedules.
These are not minor logistical details to figure out after a vote. They are part of determining whether the proposed model itself is workable.
3. We Are Already Operating Below the Instructional Capacity of the Program We Designed
NCDPI identifies a minimum of 90 minutes per week for a proficiency-building FLES model. Our CHCCS curriculum was designed around frequent, sequential instruction intended to build language proficiency over multiple years.
Under the proficiency-building model for which our curriculum was designed, students would receive World Language three times per week. Frequency matters because proficiency develops through sustained exposure and use over time.
Two years ago, during significant district budget reductions, our elementary World Language program quietly absorbed the elimination of the additional 0.5 FTE positions at our schools. As a result, most of our students currently receive World Language only twice per week.
The consequences are mathematical. At our smallest elementary school, my 16 classes would require 48 class meetings each week to provide three instructional contacts per class. Across the district, FLES teachers average approximately 22 classes, meaning 66 or more class meetings each week would be required, and larger schools exceed even that.
Our curriculum remains proficiency-based, but current staffing does not provide the instructional conditions for which that curriculum was designed.
Against that backdrop, I question the wisdom of creating an entirely new two-language structure at Scroggs. We would be introducing student language pathways, additional scheduling constraints, and potential disruption to an established Spanish program while we are already unable to provide our existing FLES programs with the instructional frequency for which they were designed.
Restoring the additional 0.5 FTE positions would provide a clear path toward returning to the instructional frequency necessary to support our proficiency goals. We should not compound one structural problem by creating another.
4. We Have Been Here Before
CHCCS’s elementary World Language program was intentionally developed beginning in 1986 with support from federal Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) grants and was later highlighted nationally by the Center for Applied Linguistics in Lessons Learned: Model Early Foreign Language Programs.
We did not stumble into this model.
Decisions about languages, instructional models, staffing, scheduling, curriculum, continuity, and schoolwide culture were made deliberately.
That history is particularly relevant to Glenwood. Glenwood once operated Mandarin Dual Language alongside French FLES. CHCCS subsequently made the intentional decision to transition the FLES program from French to Mandarin.
That was not simply administrative convenience. It created a coherent Mandarin language and cultural community across the entire school rather than maintaining separate language experiences for different groups of students.
We have already confronted the question of having two different language identities within one elementary school community. We intentionally moved toward a unified model. Option 2 risks recreating at Scroggs the very division we deliberately moved away from at Glenwood.
And Scroggs already has a well-established, schoolwide Spanish FLES program. Option 2 does not simply relocate Mandarin FLES; it fundamentally changes the structure of the existing Spanish program as well. We should think very carefully before asking Scroggs students, families, teachers, and school leadership to absorb an entirely new two-language structure when another option preserves both programs intact.
There was also a recent opportunity to consider program placement and staffing together. Rashkis had an elementary Spanish position vacant until very recently, and that position has now been filled. I raise this not to question the hiring decision or the teacher who accepted the position, but because it illustrates why placement, staffing, and implementation cannot be treated as separate decisions. Before filling that vacancy, there was an opportunity to consider whether that staffing allocation could support a unified Mandarin FLES program at the same school receiving Mandarin Dual Language.
5. Please Use the Expertise That Already Exists Within CHCCS
Over the nearly 40-year history of this program, Board membership, superintendents, district administrators, principals, and teachers have changed. That is a normal part of the life of a school district. It also means that institutional knowledge matters.
I do not expect current Board members or district leaders to automatically know the intricacies of elementary World Language curriculum, proficiency development, class placement, staffing, scheduling, or why particular programmatic decisions were made years ago.
That is precisely why it is important to consult the practitioners who do know.
I have taught in this program for 30 years and served as its district lead teacher for 16. I have participated in curriculum development, program changes, staffing discussions, and the day-to-day realities of implementing elementary World Language across our schools. I have repeatedly offered to provide that context throughout this process.
My concern is not that district leaders should already know everything about this specialized program. My concern is that significant structural decisions are being considered without fully drawing upon the expertise and institutional knowledge that already exist within CHCCS.
Final Recommendation
I recognize that the Board must weigh many considerations beyond World Language programming, including enrollment, facilities, transportation, staffing, and finances. My responsibility is to make sure you also understand the instructional and operational consequences for this program before you vote.
My professional recommendation is unequivocal: keep Mandarin Dual Language and Mandarin FLES together at Rashkis.
Doing so preserves the unified Mandarin model CHCCS intentionally created. It allows Scroggs to maintain its established Spanish FLES program. It avoids creating separate language tracks for elementary students. And it provides the strongest foundation for coherent, sequential language study at both schools.
Two years ago, our program absorbed a substantial staffing reduction during a difficult financial period for the district. We are still living with the instructional consequences of that reduction.
Please do not fracture this program further and determine how to make it work afterward. Consult the people who understand this program before you decide to redesign it.
I will be present throughout tonight’s meeting and am available to provide any historical, instructional, staffing, scheduling, or operational context that would be helpful as you deliberate.
Respectfully,
Shawna Catlett
MAT, NBCT, CHCCS Elementary World Language Lead Teacher
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