According to an email from the principal on September 9, as of September 16, Highland Middle School is eliminating Spanish for all its students mid-semester and reassigning its last remaining Spanish teacher to another school. 

Parents were given no advance notice or opportunity for input before the decision was announced.

This is tragic for a school that was billed by JCPS as a Spanish immersion school with an international emphasis. Kids and parents chose Highland over other middle schools precisely for this reason. Since 2022, the school has gone from having three Spanish teachers to becoming a school with none. A cohort of kids who were told that they could go from the Hawthorne Elementary Spanish immersion program to Highland Middle and then enter high school with Spanish credits will now be denied that opportunity. 

When the school ended the immersion program in 2022 in favor of the Spanish elective, JCPS assistant superintendent for middle schools wrote in an email that "Spanish as an elective isn't going anywhere."

Sign to tell JCPS and Principal Vanessa Green to restore Spanish as an elective to Highland Middle School!