Clovis schools don’t offer language immersion, so parents started their own charter school

Harmit Singh Juneja moved to the Frenso-Clovis metro area in 2014. When the opportunity to enroll his youngest two daughters at a dual immersion school came up, he couldn’t let it pass. After all, he was one of the parents to petition for such a school to exist in Clovis.

“Clovis Unified is doing a wonderful job serving the community,” Juneja said. “But as far as an offering of dual language goes, that’s something that was missing in the landscape.”

Despite having multiple ethnic groups within its student body and several different primary languages spoken inside its district borders, Clovis Unified School District does not offer dual immersion programs of any kind, whether you are a primarily English-speaking student looking to learn another language or a student who is learning English and also want to learn in your first language.

Bothered by the lack of dual immersion programs in Clovis, in 2020 Juneja helped found the Clovis Global Academy, an independent charter school for the area’s families of all backgrounds. The school offers bilingual education, in Spanish and English, for the area’s growing diverse communities that are interested in raising multilingual students.

Juneja is now the founding principal and superintendent of the CGA. He said the school’s student body is 60% Hispanic or Latino, 30% Asian (including Punjabi and other ethnic groups), 5% African American, and less than 10% other. All students are taught in English and Spanish, he said, and can select visual and performing arts electives in Punjabi and Mandarin.

Clovis Unified is the 14th largest school district in the state and its student body is composed of 40% Hispanic students, 34% White, 16% Asian and 3% Black according to the district’s website. Out of all students, state data reports almost 5% are classified as English Language Learners — whose first languages are Spanish, Hmong, Punjabi, Vietnamese and Arabic. Considering all of the city’s residents, about a fourth of Clovis’s population speaks another language, according to U.S. Census data.

Be it an English Language Learner student, an already-bilingual student, or a monolingual one who only speaks English, dual immersion programs offer them all the opportunity to learn and improve their fluency in the offered languages.

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Juneja’s youngest two girls are in third and fourth grade and are doing well in the 50:50 dual immersion school, meaning they are taught half the time in English and the other half in Spanish. However, his oldest daughter, an eighth-grader at Clovis Unified, couldn’t have the opportunities her sisters are now experiencing because her grade level wasn’t available when the charter school opened.

Juneja said he is well aware of the differences between his daughters’ schooling, and how the younger two are showing the positive results of attending a dual-immersion school.

“We are a Punjabi-speaking family, so English and Spanish are second and third languages for us,” he said, “but the younger two are speaking Spanish fluently.”

At a recent parent resource fair, a parent told The Bee he had transferred his Latino children from Fresno schools to Clovis. He said his children, elementary school students, were part of a dual immersion program in Fresno and he was sad his kids wouldn’t have the opportunity to practice their Spanish at school at the frequency they did before.

The Bee emailed Clovis Unified’s spokesperson, Kelly Avants, specific questions inquiring about the existence of dual immersion programs at the district now or before, and if there has been registered interest in these programs.

“In Clovis Unified, we have chosen not to create a dual immersion program,” Avants said in a general email statement providing the district’s explanation

She said the district has decided to not offer these types of programs because its educational philosophy focuses on “the neighborhood school concept,” providing the same programs and services at every site, rather than “segmenting” schools and the offerings for students.

Avants said because of this same reason, the district doesn’t have magnet schools or schools offering the International Baccalaureate. However, she said Clovis Unified does offer Advanced Placement (AP) classes at every high school.

What does Clovis Unified offer for multilingual students

Language electives are available for Clovis Unified high school students, and some intermediate schools allow eighth graders to enroll in Spanish I. According to each high school’s website, language electives vary by school at the standard and AP levels. However, all of these classes are specifically scheduled for a limited time block and not a dual immersion modality where students can practice and learn in different languages throughout the school day.

For multilingual students entering the district who are English Learners, Avants said multilingual students are placed in a structured English immersion setting along with their classmates. She said focus is placed on EL students accessing core content, meeting grade level standards and integrating into the district’s English Language Development (ELD) instruction.

“Our multilingual students receive daily designated ELD instruction that is aligned with the CA ELD standards,” she said, “and is aligned directly with their language proficiency levels.”

The California Department of Education (CDE) states it is okay to immerse English speakers into a language, but not Spanish speakers because an English-speaking student is not at risk of losing their language. This means Spanish-speaking students are at risk of losing their first language if immersed in a monolingual program.

For English-speaking students in the United States, their first language is spoken at home, in the community, and in the media, the CDE states. So, their first language can be practiced and used outside of school but that isn’t the case for other language speakers.

“Dual-language immersion programs are not replacing English with another language,” the CDE states, “but provide the students the opportunity to acquire a second language.”

The CDE states Spanish-speaking students can participate in Spanish-English dual immersion programs since it helps them keep their first language while learning a second.

When immersed in a 90:10 program, meaning students are taught 90% of the time in Spanish and 10% in English, English learners “score[d] as well as or better than their peers in other programs in English tests,” according to research quoted by the CDE.

And these programs aren’t limited to Spanish and English speakers only, the department states. Speakers of other languages who are proficient in either Spanish or English could be eligible for enrollment in Spanish-English dual immersion programs. Dual immersion programs aren’t limited to Spanish-English instruction either, as seen in Hmong-English programs offered in Fresno.

Juneja grew up in India and said his experiences learning English, Punjabi and Hindi at school proved to him how “essential” dual immersion education is.

“I think we as a country are a little bit behind on this,” he said. “In most of the world, kids are learning two or more languages naturally in their process of education.”

Dual immersion better prepares children for the 21st century, Juneja said, since it allows them to communicate in more than one language and be of more service to their communities.

“As you start to see different perspectives and cultures and languages,” he said, “it shapes you in so many beautiful ways.”

In the Fresno-Clovis metro area, there are several opportunities to learn languages outside of school hours, in class or at your own individual pace. These classes range from free to varying price ranges. Those interested can access details about these classes, as reported by The Bee, at https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article276268116.html.