Hollister School District Superintendent Gary McIntire asked the board Tuesday to consider expanding the Hollister Dual Language Academy from a K-6 campus to a K-8 school to meet growing enrollment numbers.
This year, the Hollister Dual Language Academy doubled its kindergarten from two to four classes to decrease class sizes and address growing demands for local bilingual education.
McIntire presented a few options to the board for how the academy could expand to accommodate growing enrollment and possibly additional seventh- and eighth-grade classes. McIntire suggested the district could add portable classrooms to the site currently shared with Gabilan Hills Elementary School. He also suggested the district could phase Gabilan Hills classes into academy ones so that a full K-8 bilingual campus was located at the site.
“Now that we’ve added a kindergarten class, we still have time,” McIntire said. “There’s no crisis tonight.”
The superintendent recommended the board make a decision on the possibility of changing the academy to a K-8 model by February 2015 so that there was time to take care of “notifications and things of that nature,” McIntire said. He suggested the board hold a meeting at Gabilan Hills’ Gecko Hall in January to invite the community’s input on the possibility of making the dual language academy the area’s neighborhood school. To inform parents of the discussion, the district could use the automated phone system, flyers, the district website and newsletters to reach out to parents, McIntire said.
Other changes at the academy this year included the addition of several teachers who were not proficient in Spanish but are English partners for those who are; two guest teachers from Spain; and a $5,000 grant from the Barona Band of Mission Indians to help the academy’s low-income students bring home musical instruments.
