During their September 14 regular meeting, the Oxford Board of Education approved the final handbook for the district’s English as a Second Language (ESL) program.
The handbook establishes guidelines for running the program including how ESL students are identified, what kinds of services can be provided and when retesting will be done.
ESL is a voluntary program for students, and parents can choose for their children not to participate.
However, the school district does not need parental permission to test a student to see if ESL services may be needed.
According to ESL instructor Karen Hile, there are currently 88 students in Oxford Schools receiving services through the program.
Of those 88, only 22 are receiving full services while the remaining 66 are being monitored for continued progress in English.
Clear Lake Elementary currently has the highest number of students participating in ESL, 22 total.
Hile reported the following breakdown of the remaining ESL students throughout the district:
n Lakeville and OHS are tied with the second largest number of ESL students, 18 at each building.
n Oxford Middle School has 11.
n Oxford Elementary has eight.
n Daniel Axford Elementary has seven.
n Leonard has three.
n And Crossroads For Youth currently has one.
Hile reported that for this year there is a wide range of languages being spoken by the students.
Spanish is the most prominent, being spoken by 45 percent of the students.
The remaining languages include Hmong (15 percent); Eastern European languages (20 percent); and Korean, Chinese, Japanese (10 percent).
Hile explained during the meeting that the remaining 10 percent, which she labeled ‘other,? includes a variety of languages from around the world.
School board member Doug Myer asked during the meeting whether any parents had declined for their students to receive the services.
Hile explained that some have, but that the students are quite young.
‘A few have refused the program,? she confirmed. ‘The parents felt that with time the students would be fine.?