We urge the Urbana Board of Education to adopt Option Y on the Dual Language issue.

1. Vote “no” on the proposal to move to a single Dual Language (Spanish & English) school housed at Leal Elementary School next year (the 2023-2024 school year)
   
   
2.  Charge the DL Committee with studying how to improve the existing Dual Language strand model
   
   
3.  Maintain three Dual Language schools in Urbana at Leal,  
   Dr. Preston Williams, and Yankee Ridge elementary schools

The Urbana Board of Education can strengthen our Dual Language (DL) programs and preserve three neighborhood schools (Dr. Preston Williams, Leal, Yankee Ridge) by voting for Option Y. 

Adopting Option Y means the DL committee will switch its focus to improving the DL strands in our neighborhood schools instead of disrupting the education of hundreds of children. 

The district’s Dual Language committee recommends moving hundreds of children and create a segregated, single-purpose DL school for Spanish/English instruction learners at Leal elementary. If adopted, all children, teachers, and staff in the DL strand at DPW will  have to move to Leal. All non-DL children, teachers, and staff at Leal would have to be sent to other schools. Bussing would have to increase.

A third of the committee members DIDN’T VOTE on the proposal because they felt they didn’t have enough information. The proposal rests in part on surveys that only included a small number of respondents, all in the DL programs—and 70 percent of them said they’d leave the DL program if it was consolidated and they had to leave their home school. Furthermore, families with children in the schools who were not in DL programs were excluded from the surveys. 

We want the best for Urbana 116 and to see the Dual Language program continue as an asset for the district and the community. That is why we urge the Board to strengthen the current DL strand program through a stronger, more inclusive, data-informed process. Preserve our neighborhood schools.