WCS Awarded Indiana Dual Language Pilot Grant
WARSAW — The Indiana Department of Education announced that Warsaw Community Schools has been awarded the Indiana Dual Language Pilot Grant. WCS was one of five school corporations in the state awarded.
The $200,000 grant award will be used to develop and implement a world language immersion program within WCS. Starting immediately, WCS educators and administrators will begin the process of shaping a program that will best meet the needs of the students, parents and global business community.
The investigation stage of the grant will include visiting other world language immersion schools to learn education best practices of implementation and recruitment of qualified educators for the position. Starting in the fall of 2016-17, WCS will begin offering one kindergarten classroom of world language immersion at Eisenhower Elementary. Each following year, WCS hopes to add one section to each grade level as a choice to parents.
Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert shared, “We are very excited about adding a world language immersion program at Eisenhower Elementary School for the fall of 2016. The immersion program will fit very well into our local community due to our strong global industry. This academic offering will provide parents and students another choice in the robust curriculum offered in the WCS curriculum. We know this program will be a great success under the leadership of Eisenhower principal Chris Gensinger.”
The Indiana Dual Language Immersion Program provides grants to school corporations to establish a dual language immersion program in Chinese, Spanish, French or any other language approved by the department. This grant will be implemented in the fall of 2016.
More information on registration and program specifics will be released throughout the 2015 school year. The scope of the grant includes beginning a dual language immersion program in Kindergarten at Eisenhower using an instructional model that utilizes the current WCS curriculum but provides the delivery and learning in at least 50 percent or more of the day learning in the second language and the rest of the day in English.
WCS will undertake a comprehensive plan for training and professional development to ensure long term success. Depending on the enrollment requests, additional schools and languages could be offered to meet the future needs.