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8-B THE MIAMI HERALD Wednesday, Nov. 10, 1965 C At Coral Way Parents Group Fights Bilingual School Plan ByPETEMANN H1nld Education Writer P ar ents of a handful of fifth -grade rs at Coral Way Elementary D ade's pi oneering bilingual s chool comp 1 a in e d Tuesday that th e ir children are being treated like educational or phans In a letter to Miami May or Ro b ert King High, with c op i es t o School Superinten dent Joe Hall and news media, the parents claimed their youngsters h av e been lumped into a sixth-grade class and are failing." Their children are n o t participating in the bilingual program. The school refuses to provide a. filth-grade teacher for a. separate a.ll-in Engllsh class, the pa.rents claimed. Coral Way Principal Jo seph L. Logan said there are only 11 fifth-graders whose parents chose to keep them out of the b ilingu al program in which lessons are taught in both Spani s h and English. Both he and South Central District Superintendent Wes ley W. Matthews said a te acher cannot be allocated for so small a group of stu dents because of the cost of increased staffing. "Combi nat ion c 1 asses made up of students from tw o grades, ar e standard procedure in such a situa ti on and there are many such classes througho ut the sch o o 1 system Matthews said. The letter bore 20 signa tures, representing 14 differ ent family names, but Logan said he believed there were only eight children whose p a r en ts objected to the present arrangement. Matthews said he met wi th th e disgruntled parents Oct. 22 and assured them t hat every effort will be made to pro vi de a g o o d edu cational program for t h e children He said it is no t t ru e tha t the children are failing Some of them he said are achieving above average for the school system. One charge brou g ht by the parents in their letter was that t he combined class in cluded m a ny Cuban students whos e difficulty with Eng lish impedes instruction. Logan said the class ls about 50 per cent Cuban, but that those with language problems are g'iven some spe cial instruction in English dally in a. separate class room. Coral Way began its bi lingual program two y ears ago wit h the first t h re e grades The fourth grade was added last year and the fift h this year. Plans call for the sixth grade to partici pate next year. Matthews said the 11 fifth -gra ders who are not taking par t will be in a similar situation next year, a nd if a combined class can not be created for them, the probably will have to be t r a n s p o r t e d to another school. He said the parents were gi v en a list of nearby schools a nd told tha t if t hey want ed their children transferred t h i s year, those schools w ould accept them pro vi ded classes were not rowded. Matthews said he had promised to contact the par ents' spokesman, Mrs. Jacqueline Sharkey, within a. week after the Oct. 22 meet ing, and had tried repeatedly to call her, at home and at her office, but without suc cess. "I'm still trying, he said Ap parently, his failure to reach Mrs. Shar k ey trig gere d t he letter, which men tion e d Ma t thews' promise and said ... as yet he has n o t ev en p aid us th e court esy of a call nor has any thing ibeen done to relieve this condition." Some of the s igner s listed the amounts of school tax they pay, and the figures ranged from $181 to $1,275, which Logan said seemed very high for the area We are all working moth ers who cannot afford to send our children to pri vat e schools or any other pu bli c schools ," the letter read, in par t.
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