When the LEP program was introduced in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools in 1987 to better serve students with special language needs, there was one teacher for 67 students. Today, all schools in the system offer LEP services, including the preschool level, said Kim Hoke, spokeswoman of Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools.
Hoke cited population growth as the major contributing factor to problems such as teacher shortages in the LEP program. "North Carolina has the fastest growing Latino population in the Southeast, so we are naturally being affected by this," Hoke said.
Hoke said the school board wants to increase the number of qualified English as a second language teachers in schools.
The school board discussed these issues at their meeting Thursday, but no action was taken. "In the past year, we've added six teachers, but part of the problem is the teacher-to-student ratio in general, which is currently 1 to 30 -- the lowest it's ever been."
Diana McDuffee, Carrboro alderman and former co-chairwoman of the LEP Oversight Committee, said the goal teacher-to-student ratio is 1 to 20.
She emphasized that officials are working on additional solutions to a very complex and unstable problem.
McDuffee also said the school system recently received a federally funded dual language grant. The grant will fund the plan for a new language immersion program that will be set up in a couple of kindergarten classes, where half of the class is taught in English and the other half in Spanish or Chinese, depending on the program. "This way, the English-speaking students will not be held back, and the LEP students will be able to learn at both levels," she said.
The grant also is intended to go toward hiring a new full-time ESL coordinator in the school system.
McDuffee also said some students have needs after elementary school that require attention. "I think we need to help students coming into high school, that don't have sufficient schooling in either language," she said. "It's a problem that we've been noticing more and more. These students aren't really getting anything out of the classes offered in both English or their native language."
