Correction: An earlier version of the story misstated which school kids matriculate up to. Right now, they go to Edison Middle School. The updated version also clarifies the number of total kindergarten sections.
Simplified: The Sioux Falls School District first started talking about adding a Spanish immersion program nearly two decades ago. Today, there are more than 1,700 kids learning in both Spanish and English at school.
Why it matters
- Immersion students are taught primarily in Spanish, with the goal of becoming both bilingual and bi-literate over the course of their schooling. One-way immersion students spend 90% of their day speaking Spanish, and two-way immersion students spend half the day speaking Spanish and half the day speaking English.
- Last year alone, 168 received Global Seals of Biliteracy, and 69 students received a brand new South Dakota Seal of Biliteracy – both of which are tests to objectively gauge a student's fluency.
- Earlier this month, school board members discussed plans to expand the Spanish Immersion program at the middle school level as 100 two-way immersion students age out of elementary school. But Assistant Superintendent Kirk Zeeck said the district is close to maxing out its capacity for new students in the program as space at Sonia Sotomayor Elementary fills.
"One of the things we have to consider is the ability to hire personnel and just across the U.S.," Zeeck said. "Employment arena has made it difficult."
Tell me more about the history of the program
The school district started a planning committee for Spanish Immersion in 2006, and two years later the first class of kindergarteners started at Rosa Parks Elementary.
- Four years later, in 2012, the program expanded to two classes at Robert Frost.
- By 2014, the first class of Spanish Immersion kids entered middle school.
The program hit a major milestone in 2016 with the opening of Sonia Sotomayor Elementary, an entire building dedicated to Spanish Immersion.
By the 2017-18 school year, there were five sections of kindergarten at Sonia Sotomayor, and in 2019, the district expanded to eight sections, four at Sonia, two at Hayward and two at Rosa Parks Elementary.
- Between 2019 and 2021 the waitlist for kindergarteners was between 65 and 85 people.
- A final kindergarten section was added in 2023, and the waitlist for the 24-25 school year is back up to 31.
In the last year, South Dakota became the last state in the country to create a state seal of biliteracy. Sixty-nine high school seniors received that distinction this year.
What happens next?
Spanish Immersion will move into both Ben Reifel and George McGovern Middle Schools to accommodate the two-way immersion kids. That'll require hiring two more teachers.
- Eventually, those district will need to figure out where those kids go if they continue the program into high school, too. Right now, Sonia Sotomayor students matriculate up to Edison Middle School and then Lincoln High School.
The district is also always looking for families to host interns in the Spanish Immersion Program – often people from Spanish-speaking countries who are on the path to becoming fully certified as teachers.
