Jan. 11—Santa Fe Public Schools’ Reimagining effort yielded its first major programming recommendation during a school board meeting Thursday night: commitment to a “renaissance” in local bilingual education.

“There is a commitment in our district for a stronger bilingual program,” said Veronica García, a former superintendent contracted by the district to serve as its chief strategist for Reimagining.

The “renaissance,” as she put it, would include expansion of K-12 dual-language opportunities and initiatives to better support all students whose first language is not English. An official resolution in support of bilingual education is expected to go before the school board during its next meeting Jan. 25.

Ongoing since October 2022 and expected to cost up to $210,000, Reimagining is an effort to analyze district policies, programs and facilities and make sweeping changes intended to strengthen the district and respond to declining enrollment numbers. With widespread support across Santa Fe Public Schools, bilingual education quickly emerged as one of the process’ priorities.

Any changes would build on the district’s existing bilingual programs. Those include dual-language programs at El Camino Real Academy and Salazar, César Chávez and Sweeney elementary schools, as well as heritage programs — designed to revitalize a student’s home language through instruction while developing a second language — at Ramirez Thomas and Kearny elementary schools.

The goal is to ensure several types of bilingual education offerings exist in the district, allowing families to pick the one that best serves their student, said Daniel Pastrana, the new executive director of Santa Fe Public Schools’ Language and Culture Department.

“We want to really pitch this to the community as: ‘There are many options. What works best for your family and for your child?’ ” he told the board.

Long-term, the district should build toward varying bilingual programs with bridges between elementary, middle and high schools, García said, including offering “strands” of dual-language programming at Milagro Middle School and Santa Fe and Capital high schools. Under that system, students in a dual-language program at Sweeney Elementary School, for instance, could connect to future programs at Ortiz Middle School and Capital High.

For expanded access to bilingual programming, García said the district also needs to hire more teachers certified in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and enhanced English development teachers.

Although Pastrana reported the district’s dual-language programs are now 99% staffed — with more people in the pipeline — bilingual positions remain hard to fill because they require special skills. A study by New Mexico State University’s Southwest Outreach Academic Research Evaluation and Policy Center found explicitly bilingual positions represented about 5% of New Mexico’s 751 teacher vacancies in 2023.

During Thursday’s meeting, board members expressed support for expanding access to bilingual education in local schools, particularly given New Mexico’s unique cultural and linguistic landscape.

“I’m very excited for the Santa Fe Public Schools to announce to the world that bilingual education is a priority,” said board member Kate Noble. “I do hope we pass this resolution and that we make this an integral, integral part of our identity because it fits really well.”

Sascha Anderson, who was voted into the role of board president Thursday night, said she hopes the district will be able to incorporate Indigenous languages in public school programming where appropriate and approved by tribes, nations and pueblos.

“There’s just so much richness there, and I’m here learning … my ancestral language as an adult, which is hard,” said Anderson, who is an enrolled citizen of the Chocktaw Nation of Oklahoma. “I know there might not be … a critical mass now, but I think it would just be great as we move forward.”

As Noble said Thursday night, Reimagining has reached its “action time,” after more than a year of data collection and investigation.

Although García said the process remains “very organic” and open to new ideas, the effort is expected to bring policy recommendations throughout the next several months, tackling priorities including behavioral health and social-emotional learning, student recruitment and retention and staff recruitment and retention, among others.

“Every little bit adds up to something meaningful,” Noble said. “Though this may not be a silver bullet to fix education forever … there are many good, strong initiatives coming out of this work.”