Tracy Horrell, assistant superintendent of secondary education, told the Warsaw School Board Tuesday that in less than a year, there will students at Warsaw Community High School in the Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program.
“So we’ve transitioned from sixth to seventh (grade), and now we’re going to transition from eighth to ninth,” he said.
Crystal Kreider, DLI coach, said Warsaw Community Schools (WCS) is getting a curriculum ready for DLI program at the high school. On the elementary school side, the program has been working on assessments for essential standards “we’ve identified as a team.” The standards have been years in the making because the state of Indiana does not have Spanish language arts standards.
Kreider said the hope is students will have high levels of language skills. As of right now, the oldest students in the program have mid to high levels of fluency in Spanish.
“This is the range where they start to communicate in the past, present and future pretty well, with some mistakes. And that’s pretty common” in the language learning process, Kreider said. She said when students are done with the program, they should be able to do a lot of great things with the Spanish language “and that’s where we’re trying to get them.”
Horrell said middle school students have completed Spanish 1, 2, 3 and 4, so they’re ready to take the AP test at the end of their freshman year.
Kreider said 81% of students were on track to pass the AP test when they were in seventh-grade. If students pass the AP test, they will be able to take advanced courses in partnership with Indiana University.
In ninth grade, students in the DLI program will take DLI AP Spanish 5 and DLI Culture, History and Media. In 10th grade, they will take Hispanic culture and Conversation and Written Composition. In 11th grade, they will take Spanish Conversation and Diction and Special Topics. In 12th grade, students will take Introduction to Hispanic Literature.
Horrell said WCS is still trying to work through some details because the advanced courses being offered are higher-level courses, the teacher has to be an IU professor or adjunct professor and WCS is trying to work through whether one of their teachers will be an adjunct professor to teach the classes at the high school campus.
Kreider said students in the DLI program will also graduate with a certificate of multilingual proficiency, which is an official certified document where a high level of proficiency in one of more languages is required to receive. She said it is a valuable asset when applying to universities or jobs that require language skills.
Earlier in the meeting, the board heard about Down syndrome, as March is Down Syndrome Awareness Month.
Fabiola Nunez, digital learning specialist, said Down syndrome, also known as Trisomy 21, is a condition when a person has an extra chromosome. Around 1 in every 800 children will be born with Down syndrome.
Speech pathologist Angie Madeford said over her career, she has worked with a lot of children in WCS with Down syndrome from preschool to high school. In early development, children with Down syndrome learn at their own pace and each student has their own strengths, interests, talents and needs.
Madeford said it is not uncommon for students with Down syndrome to have issues with their vision and hearing. She said a lot of what she does with the students is strengthening exercises.
With visuals, students are helped with pairing pictures and words and use demonstrations, visual cues and color coding. Those students may have trouble with memory and processes. Madeford said it is important to give the students time to respond.
Nunez said her daughter Sara has Down syndrome. Nunez said she didn’t know Sarah had Down syndrome until two days after she was born. Sara didn’t start walking until she was 2-1/2.
Nunez said she is very thankful for organizations like the YMCA, Joe’s Kids and Magical Meadows because they give Sara activities to participate in. She also thanked WCS for all the support they have for all their students.
In other business, the board:
• Heard Krista Dausman, assistant director of special education, will be retiring at the end of the school year. Tina Northern was offered that position.
• Heard Leesburg Elementary School nurse Rachelle Himes was named the 2025 Indiana School Nurse of the Year. Himes will be officially recognized at the National Association of School Nurses National Conference in Austin, Texas, in June and celebrated at the IASN State Conference in November.