Barrington School District 220 will offer a Mandarin Chinese immersion program for tots through teens next fall, now that the board of education has voted to accept a $1.5 million federal matching grant for the program for five years.
School board members had been mulling over whether to take on the financial obligation posed by the grant, which was awarded in the summer. They voted 6-1 to accept it at a meeting Tuesday night.
The district will become the only one in the state to offer Chinese immersion from kindergarten through high school, said Todd Bowen, chairman of the world language department, who secured the grant from the U.S. Department Education. Chinese already was offered in middle school and high school and now will be extended to the elementary grades.
The district also will partner with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to prepare classes for Barrington High School students who want to continue with the language in college.
“Our partnership with the University of Illinois will ensure that our students will make significant progress in a K-16 model of where they can become professionally proficient speakers of Chinese with a global vision of the world,” Bowen said Wednesday. “It’s very exciting. The board is taking a step for the future.
“The implementation of the elementary Chinese immersion program will be an outstanding opportunity for Barrington 220 students who will have the possibility of developing professional competence in an Asian language. This program puts Barrington 220 among the leaders in language education in the United States and gives our students a chance to communicate with their peers on the other side of the ever-flattening global map,” he said.
Starting next month, the district will offer a voluntary exploratory program for kindergarten students to introduce them to the language, Bowen said. He said details still are being worked out, but it would be an early gauge of interest in the language and help with implementation next year.
Classes for kindergartners and first graders will be held at Barbara B. Rose Elementary School in South Barrington. A grade level will be added each year.
