Novel Bilingual Program in Jeopardy in Fullerton

FULLERTON — Three years after Sunny Hills High School launched the only federally funded Korean-English bilingual program in the country, half the students have signed a petition wanting out.

Since the students delivered the petition late last month, school officials have met individually with them, and only one has left Project Delta. Some said in interviews this week they will decide over the summer whether to stay in the program.

Sunny Hills students’ rejection of Project Delta adds a twist to the debate on bilingual education, which up until now has usually involved educators, parents and policymakers.

“Students are not frequently asked for their opinions and their voices are not heard,” said Magaly Lavadenz, director of state and legislative affairs for the California Assn. for Bilingual Education. “I find this interesting because it demonstrates the students’ understanding of how things should be and what the students feel they really need in terms of an instructional program.”

In the petition that accompanied a survey expressing their dissatisfaction, 44 of the 87 students told the director of Project Delta that “we now realize that we have been emerged (sic) in a program that has failed to provide ‘bilingual and bicultural immersion.”’

Therefore, the students wrote, “we declare that we no longer want to be involved in Project Delta and will not recommend this to anyone.”.

The program was launched in 1994 at one of Orange County’s best public high schools, one with 51% Asian Americans, of whom close to a third are Korean Americans. The students enrolled in the program are from all grade levels, and most are Korean Americans, but it is open to all students.

The mission of the project, according to its literature, “is to provide an environment where students are able to become multicultural, as well as bilingual and biliterate in Korean and English.” Unlike most bilingual programs whose goal is to teach students English, Project Delta’s students are fluent in English, and they want to learn another language--Korean--and its culture.

Project Delta’s original purpose was to teach students English and Korean, in addition to teaching math and social science in both languages. But math was dropped in the first year because the teacher had problems teaching the class in two languages.

In their petition to Deanna Hill, the program’s director, the students said they were unhappy with that change, and they were not getting enough Korean instruction in the other classes.

A 16-year-old junior, who has been in the program for three years, said this week that he is considering dropping out of Project Delta next year. “There’s really no point in staying in it [because] it has barely done anything to help my Korean get better,” he said. “I don’t feel [school officials] have done much to help me. They haven’t hired new teachers in the program or have new equipment that would help me.”

He and many of the 44 students who want out of the project wrote in statements to administrators that they were misled into thinking Project Delta would make it easier to get accepted into prestigious universities.

Sunny Hills’ principal, Loring Davies, and Hill have met individually with the students. The administrators said the students’ concerns stemmed from their misperception of Project Delta as well as the school’s failure to meet the program’s intention of bilingual and bicultural immersion.

Davies conceded that counselors and teachers, without meaning to, may have given the students the impression that having Project Delta on their transcripts would help them get into elite schools.

Davies and Hill also acknowledged that the project is no longer the bilingual and bicultural immersion program it set out to be because of the complexity of teaching subjects in two languages with some teachers not accredited to give instruction in bilingual programs.

But since Delta students still take an hour of Korean every day, and Korean culture, literature and history are incorporated into other classes, Davies said the school is “able to meet the spirit and philosophy of the grant,” which gave Sunny Hills $225,000 to launch the project. The funding ends this school year, and Hill has applied for money to expand the program.

Lavadenz of the bilingual education association said school officials might not get the money.

“Most of the courses are mainly taught in English, and yes, there’s a language class, but that alone is not enough,” she said.

Hill and Davies said they think the students’ furor has passed. In the month since they met with the students, only one has requested to leave the program due to his dissatisfaction, Hill said. Two others left because of scheduling conflicts.

Virginia Han, president of the Korean Parent Support Group at the high school, said some members originally wanted to start a petition to pull their children out of the program, while remaining in the Korean classes. But they want to give school officials and the students a chance to work the problems out.