New school academies offer new options for Hollister
parents.
The first two magnet schools in San Benito County opened with
the new school year.
New school academies offer new options for Hollister parents
The first two magnet schools in San Benito County opened with the new school year.
The dual language academy has 80 students enrolled for its first year – two kindergarten classes totaling 40 students and two first-grade classes totaling 40 students.
The numbers were surprising, said Delia Gomez, the academy’s vice principal.
“We have a long waiting list of people who want to transfer their kids into the program,” Gomez said. “Even now that the school year has started people will be driving by and see the banner. They weren’t aware of it before, even though the district has been promoting the program for the last two years.”
The language academy starts in kindergarten and will eventually have classes through the eighth grade. It is located on the same property as Gabilan Hills Elementary School; however, the school has its own campus and a separate budget from that of Gabilan Hills.
Part of the reason the dual language academy isn’t integrated into Gabilan Hills is because Gabilan Hills has 644 students enrolled there, Gomez said. The thought was that as the dual language academy grows and Gabilan Hills grows, the two schools would encompass too many students were they not in separate facilities. So the dual language academy has a separate campus complete with permanent buildings.
Classes are divided so that students spend half the time learning in English and the other half learning in Spanish. A third of the students enrolled in the program are English speaking, one-third are Spanish speaking and one-third are bilingual.
“Our goal for the students by the time they are in the eighth grade,” Gomez said, “Is that they should be able to go to any school and be able to flourish in either environment. Our goal is that students, by the time they leave this program, they should be bilingual, bi-literate and multicultural.”
Yvonne Perez and her husband wanted their son, Marcos, to have the opportunity to learn in English as well as Spanish since Marcos comes from a bilingual home.
“My husband and I are both bilingual and the program offers great support of what we do in our home,” Perez said. “It reinforces what we are already doing. As a teacher, I have observed at other schools where dual language academies are present and I’ve always been really impressed. I’m really glad that such a program has been brought to Hollister.”
Another benefit of the dual language academy is that it is a K-8 school, so Marcos will be able to stay on the same campus through junior high, Perez said.
At Calaveras Elementary School the accelerated achievement academy also started this year, and that magnet program is integrated into the general campus.
For their first year, the enrichment academy enrolled 68 students, according to Calaveras vice-principal Laurie Forrest. There are three classes; one third grade, one fourth grade and one fifth grade.
Both academies have their own budgets, separate from the schools they border. They also draw from the entire Hollister School District population, so anyone who signs up and is qualified can attend either school.
“The academy doesn’t take the place of GATE (Gifted and Talented Education),” Forrest said. “It’s just another program parents can choose to have their kids enrolled in. It differs from GATE in that the program will compact curriculum and add enrichment other schools often have in their after school programs.”
For the enrichment portion of their program the accelerated academy will be using the Renzulli learning system, which identifies student interests through surveys and teaches according to those interests, Forrest said.
Both magnet schools have a staff of highly qualified teachers with experience in the fields they are teaching. All of the teachers at the dual immersion academy have a bilingual education background and three of the teachers at the accelerated achievement academy have their own knowledge and skills. Susan Glass published a science textbook; Kim Gaither ran the GATE program for the Hollister School District and Tiffany Bianchi is very involved in technology. The students have all those strengths to draw from, Forrest said.
Both academies also emphasize the importance of parental involvement and each requires a certain amount of volunteer hours per school year.
“We ask parents to volunteer 20 hours per year,” Gomez said. “All of the parents are really happy to volunteer. Parents are really excited about learning another language.”
