The purpose of the Spanish Two-way Immersion programs is to foster students’ development of language proficiency in all domains (speaking, writing, reading, and listening) of English and Spanish, while encouraging students to appreciate the cultural heritage and identity of themselves, their family, and their surrounding community. To achieve this purpose, the following goals have been established.

The goals for the Spanish Two-way Immersion program are as follows:

High academic achievement

It is the intent of the Spanish Two-way Immersion program to hold all students to the same content standards and expectations as their monolingual peers. It is the goal to ensure all students achieve at high levels, as demonstrated by their performance on multiple measures (diagnostic, criterion-referenced, and norm-referenced). The students in the Spanish Two-way Immersion program are expected to perform at least as high as their grade-level peers across the district as well as the state by the end of third grade.

Full biliteracy and bilingual proficiency

The focus of the Spanish Two-way Immersion program is on additive bilingualism and full biliteracy. It is critical that all students maintain verbal proficiency in their first language while developing proficiency in their second. Biliteracy in both languages is the expectation by the end of 5 th grade, with students able to demonstrate full proficiency in both languages in all dimensions: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. These goals will be reflected in the written curriculum as well as in classroom instruction.

Cultural and ethnic competency

Along with language development, it is the expectation that every student in the Spanish Two-way Immersion program will develop skills and attitudes that enable them to function comfortably in linguistically and culturally diverse contexts. The Spanish Two-way Immersion classroom is by nature culturally diverse: students represent a variety of countries and heritages, even if many Spanish speakers have been born in the U.S. Intentionally developing students’ awareness and understanding of each other will increase their cooperation and cohesion in the classroom. Cultural and ethnic competency will be demonstrated on instruments that measure attitudes and knowledge concerning cultural competency, as well as through interviews and classroom-observed situations. Cultural and ethnic competency is an essential strand of the regular subject-area curriculum in the two-way immersion classroom, and the written curriculum will reflect this accordingly.