About 100 public school students in pre-k and kindergarten are taking part in a dual language program this year in Springfield, Massachusetts. They will be spending half the day learning and speaking English, and the other half in Spanish.
The program is being piloted at Springfield's Gerena Community School. In the coming years the district plans to establish the program through 12th grade.
Rosa Rodriguez Pion is the dual language coordinator for the Springfield Public Schools. She said research shows multilingual learners are among the highest achieving students by the time they graduate.
Dual language learning is closing an achievement gap for students who were not initially English language speakers, Rodriguez Pion said.
She said starting the program in the early years is the "sweet spot."
"[Pre-k and kindergarten] is a good age to start because even if they're coming to us with some gaps, we will have the teachers that are trained to them and differentiate instruction and all different needs," Rodriguez Pion said.
Springfield became part of the Western Massachusetts Bilingual Hub, along with Amherst and Holyoke, in 2020. A partnership with the University of Massachusetts Amherst, prepares educators in bilingual and dual language programs.
