Massena Central School Board continues foreign language discussions

Mar. 14—MASSENA — Massena Central School Board members are continuing their discussion about providing a second language at the elementary level.

Joyce Giroux said she wanted the district to consider instituting "some kind of second language study for our younger students."

The discussion has come up several times when board members have been asked to provide suggestions for future meeting agendas. However, there have been no presentations to the board.

"She's asking it to be on the agenda instead of putting it at the end of the meeting when we're all tired and when we want to go home," Robert M. LeBlanc said. "So, can we put it early so we can talk about it when everybody's fresh? It feels bad for us to talk about those at the end of the meeting."

Giroux said she believed the program would be most beneficial for pre-kindergarten students, possibly beginning next year.

There are six pre-kindergarten classrooms among the district's three elementary schools. She said Trinity Catholic School had previously offered French to younger students and that had been beneficial.

"When those students got to seventh and eighth grade when it was required, they were far above because they had the exposure," she said.

"There's a lot of value on targeting our younger kids. That's what we're trying to express and make the board understand how important it is to bring exposure to a second language, not necessarily one in particular, at a younger age and to our youngest as possible instead of learning when you're at high school," LeBlanc said.

Giroux said they could look at providing the instruction without impacting the regular curriculum.

"I was talking about that it would not interrupt the PreK4 curriculum drastically if we were talking about 15 minutes in a six-day cycle. I mean, very, very low key, and I'm sure we could get community volunteers to come in and help with that," she said.

There had previously been discussion about high school foreign language or International Baccalaureate students presenting to the younger students, and Susan B. Lambert said that would not be a new concept.

She recalled a discussion she had with retired Spanish teacher Susan J. Bellor about how they had brought foreign language down to the elementary level.

"A number of years ago she took her Spanish students to our kindergarten classrooms and did exactly what you were saying. It has been done before," she said.

LeBlanc said they weren't looking for a vote to begin a program.

"This is just the subject so we can discuss and find something that's going to be functional," he said.

Patricia F. Murphy said she needed more clarification about what they were seeking for a presentation.

"I'm asking for clarification of where exactly we are on that because, if we're going to put that on the agenda, I want to make sure that we invite the correct people to give us a presentation so that we have more substantial facts," she said.

Superintendent Ronald P. Burke said he believed it was "healthy to have that as an agenda item."

"But, I would also ask the board to consider the process of doing this because, as we know, anything that comes top down is only as good as the people that receive it," he said.

He asked board members to consider forming an ad hoc committee that would include teachers "that are going to be the front line people."

"I want to be careful about just simply saying, 'Let it be done unto our UPK teachers in a vacuum' because they do have curriculum. They do have a job to make sure that children are ready for kindergarten. We need to know and we need to hear from them or the other grade levels where we think about introducing that what truly is the impact," Burke said.

He said it would be great to have language throughout a student's educational career.

"But, then I think, okay, I also have to provide 30 minutes of recess mandated and we have to have so much ELA (English language arts) instruction. How do we fit that in? I think it's best to have the practitioners be part of that conversation because it's not being unto them, but they're hearing this is a board priority. Come together. How can we make this work and take baby steps?" Burke said.