Sep 30, 2006

Immersion program is in session

Private school to celebrate inauguration next week

By Doug Oakley

A new Spanish-English immersion school started this month in Oakland to fill what parents and administrators say is a sorely needed demand for Spanish language skills.

Escuela Bilingue Internacional is in the former St. Augustine School on Alcatraz Avenue. It currently has 80 students in its preschool and kindergarten classes and will add first grade next year. Eventually organizers hope to have preschool through eighth-grade students. At the third-grade level, students will start learning Mandarin as well as Spanish.

The private school, which opened Sept. 5, charges $9,000 a year for preschool and $13,400 a year for kindergarten and up.

Ginny Fine of Oakland enrolled her two children this year.

"The primary drive for enrolling them was the Spanish immersion," said Fine. "It's invaluable to know a second language and the younger you learn it, the better. If you live in California, next to English, Spanish is the most practical language to know."

Escuela Bilingue Internacional school board President Liza Sanchez came up with the idea.

"I thought if they could put a man on the moon, we can build this school," said Sanchez. "There is a shortage of Spanish immersion schools in the area and I had my kid on the waiting list at Centro Vida in Berkeley for four years."

An official at Centro Vida said the school, which teaches kids ages 2 through 5, stopped allowing pregnant mothers to put their unborn children on the waiting list. They now must wait until their child is 1, and they are charged a $20 fee to get on the list.

"It's just unbelievable what the demand for bilingual schools is," said Sanchez.

Sanchez has an older daughter who attended a French immersion school in Berkeley called Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley, which was the inspiration for Escuela Bilingue Internacional.

"The parents would say, 'I love the program, but why isn't there one in Spanish?'" said Sanchez.

Elisa Batista, a school board member at Escuela Bilingue, said her son also was on the waiting list at Centro Vida, and when Escuela Bilingue opened, she enrolled him immediately.

"Knowing Spanish isn't just a plus, it's a necessity," said Batista. "When you start applying for jobs, you're going to have to know both languages."

The school will mark its inauguration on Oct. 6.

E-mail Doug Oakley at doakley@ebdailynew.com.