Former Executive Principal of the Mansfield City Schools, Jody Nash, had a school building that was being under-utilized and wanted to find something unique to bring to the Mansfield City School system. While investigating various school choices, she came across the immersion school model for different language schools and it piqued her curiosity and interest.
“There was a lot of research to do up front,” says Principal Nash of the work that went into deciding what type of language school to bring to the Mansfield area. “A Spanish school was eventually chosen and the Spanish Immersion School was born.”
As part of the Mansfield City Schools, the district promoted the new school with bulletin boards, radio spots, newspaper advertising and word-of-mouth to get their first class up and running.
Principal Nash left her executive position to become the principal of the Spanish Immersion School and get it up off the ground. “Our first class was in 2008 and we had one class of 16.” The next year they had a first grade class and two kindergarten classes and then a second grade class, two first grade classes and a pre-K class by 2010. That was also the year they moved into their current building which had been designed as a K-5th grade site and had lots of room for the Spanish Immersion School to grow.
Today, the Spanish Immersion School has approximately 48 children in pre-K and 141 in kindergarten through fifth grade. The school has a state-of-the-art computer lab, art room, music room, science room and large classrooms. Next year some of the current offices will become classrooms as they continue to expand.
The pre-K children are taught in English and then they go into an all-Spanish curriculum in first through second grade. In the fourth grade their content is 50 percent Spanish.
Currently, the school has nine teachers with seven of them coming from Spain and two American teachers who are highly fluent in Spanish. They also have a librarian from Peru.
It was a complicated and involved process to get the first group of foreign teachers. “The Visiting Teacher Program provided us with our teachers through an agreement with the Department of Education, the Spanish Embassy and Department of World Languages,” says Principal Nash on how they hired their teachers. “They get a three-year Visa to stay, but some just stay a year or others stay all three.” Each teacher teaches two sets of standards. For example, one will teach Language Arts and Social Studies and another will teach Math and Science.
The teachers have a short time after arriving in the States to get their Social Security Cards, driver’s licenses and get settled into their new living situations. For most of them, it’s their first time out of their own country.
The school secretary, Mrs. Tittlebaugh, and Principal Nash found apartments for the arriving teachers, setting them up with basic living necessities like dishware, bedding and so on. “We also utilize host families to help with our teachers,” Jody explains. She says the parents of the school kids are wonderful about stepping up to help and become very involved with the school.
Principal Nash, along with the teachers and parents of the Spanish Immersion children, feel these children are getting an edge in their education by learning Spanish. It provides certain cognitive advantages to stretch their minds and see parallels to utilizing both languages.
There is no cost for the school, as its part of the public school system; however children must be in pre-K or kindergarten in order to start attending since they are immediately immersed into Spanish at first grade. “The parents work on their English skills at home while the school is working on the Spanish skills. It’s a lot of work for the kids and the parents, but our parents see the amazing advantages to this program.”
