This is the petition of Chicago's parents, caregivers, and students to the Chicago Public Schools Board of Education to offer Sanskrit in Indic scripts as one of the language options for the World Language credits required for the high schools and in language academy elementary schools.

Sanskrit is the oldest literary language well preserved continuously to pass on ancient knowledge in science and philosophy to the next generation and to the world. The $88 billion yoga industry is rooted in it. Its main Indic script is Devanagari, which is basically Hindi's language script, and Hindi is the third most spoken language in the world after Mandarin and English. Historically Sanskrit also uses other Indic scripts like Telugu, which is also a major spoken language of South Indians living in the USA.

Sanskrit integrates with all other Indic languages very well, bringing out a deeper understanding of their diverse family heritage.

There are many CPS students with Indic family heritage, associated with two languages at home, one being Hindi and the other being regional indic languages like Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, Odia, Kannada, Konkani, Maithili, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Gujarati, Telugu, Assamese, Bodo, Bihari, Maith, Sindi, Rajasthani, Panjabi, Dogri, Urdu, Kashmiri to name some.

Chicago celebrates diversity in its demography and CPS supports many world languages like Chinese, Mandarine, Japanese, Arabic, Latin, Spanish, Italian, and other European languages, but none of the Indic language family.

It is very important for children to celebrate their family heritage at their school, among their friends to have a sense of belonging and self-esteem.

We have noticed most Indian students with multilingual family heritage, with no Spanish exposure at home, hardly pick up fluent spoken Spanish skills even after being in Spanish special's classes from Pre-K to 8th grade in CPS. When such already multilingual and multicultural freshman students are forced to take a completely new & unfamiliar language as a World Language course for just two to four years as a requirement, it takes a toll on them, especially when they are focused on STEM or have diverse learning needs. 

The University of Chicago has been offering Sanskrit courses ever since it was founded in 1892. Now it's time for Chicago Public Schools to offer Sanskrit.

Please offer Sanskrit in Hindi/Telugu scripts as World Language in CPS high schools in the 2022-2023 school year.

Chicago's Indian community will support the Sanskrit World Language Program in CPS in every possible way. Thank you!

Chicago's parent, caregiver, student, and Sanskrit language admirers, please sign this petition to show support for Sanskrit World Language Program in CPS.

Thank you!