By Rebecca Rider

rebecca.rider@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — Co-principals Lori Marrero and Yakisha Clemons have big plans for Koontz Elementary School.

“We would like to see Koontz grow as a global studies school,” Marrero said Monday.

The two hoped to get the blessing of the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education to turn Koontz into a magnet program specializing in global studies and language immersion.

The global studies program would include the whole school, with each grade focusing on a different area of the world. The immersion program would be opt-in and available only to kindergartners in its first year. Marrero said if the plan is approved, roughly half of a student’s classes would be taught in a target language and half would be taught in English. The program would require two teachers, one for English classes and one fluent in the target language.

The principals hope to partner with Visiting International Faculty to help staff the program.

Marrero said that research has shown that students learning in more than one language do better on tests, have increased cognitive skills, have better cultural knowledge and are better able to adapt in an increasingly global world.

“We think Koontz is ideal for this,” Marrero said.

The school is centrally located, has room for student growth and is placed so that increased traffic would not disturb anyone living nearby. The program could have the added benefit of making Rowan-Salisbury Schools more competitive.

“Our parents do like choice, and this would allow choice within our school system,” Marrero said.

But board members weren’t so sure.

“If we’re struggling teaching children to read and write in English, how is adding another language to that student going to make the educational process any easier? … Adding another language is just adding confusion,” board member Travis Allen said.

Vice Chairwoman Susan Cox said she has toured a school in Statesville that has an immersion program and she was “astounded” by what she saw. Cox said if learning another language starts young, children have little difficulty picking it up. She said she saw increased engagement at the school she visited.

“So you have that ownership by the child, you have that participation, you have that excitement,” she said.

Superintendent Lynn Moody said she has worked with schools that started immersion programs before. She stressed that the program would be opt-in only and there would still be regular kindergarten classes at the school.

“So parents get to choose whether they want to have their child in this or not,” she said.

Board member Richard Miller also spoke in favor of immersion programs,. He said that should the target language be Spanish, the program also serves as a way for Hispanic students to learn English.

“This is a future segment of our population, a future segment of our culture that we better learn something about,” he said.

But Board Chairman Josh Wagner wasn’t so sure, saying that it seems as though the “drastic decrease” in exposure to English would be detrimental to English- and Spanish-speaking students.

Moody disagreed.

“It’s not about mastering that particular language; it’s about mastering language as a whole,” she said.

Miller cautioned against the assumption that Spanish would be the chosen immersion language.

Board member Dean Hunter said he would be against the program as a cure-all.

“I think we’re fooling ourselves if we think that this is somehow going to cause a mass influx of people who have chosen to go to private school or home school,” he said.

Cox noted that the Statesville school is demographically similar to Koontz and that its program is very successful.

Board members agreed that they would like to go visit the school and see for themselves before they make a decision. Should it be approved, the global studies part of the program would launch in August. The immersion program would not launch until August 2018.

“We have time on this,” Moody said.

The issue will be revisited at the board’s March 13 work session.

In other business Monday, the board:

• Approved providing North Rowan, Salisbury, South Rowan and West Rowan high schools with additional discretionary funds. The four schools did not take in a minimum of $10,000 in parking fees, and the board voted to make up the difference in accordance with a Nov. 14 decision. East Rowan and Carson both exceeded the $10,000 minimum.
• Received an update on the state’s class size mandate, which could have a negative impact on 37 local positions. Staff hope that House Bill 13 will help fix the issue.
• Gave the green light to the formation of a committee to name the new western elementary school.
• Approved the 2017-18 school calendar.
• Declared 15 mobile units as surplus property.

Contact reporter Rebecca Rider at 704-797-4264.