In 1982, there were 40 students in the ESL program. Today, there are 3,000 students in both the ESL program and in bilingual education. Students who are the most successful in ESL are those who have a strong foundation in their native language. Bilingual education differs because it has two purposes. One objective is to retain and improve the speaker's native language and learning the foundation of English, Creed said.
Bilingual education allows parents to actively participate in their children's education.
In 1989, there were two bilingual classes. With the burgeoning Hispanic population in North Texas, school districts face the challenges of recruiting and making more room for new students to learn. There is a big difference between learning social language and learning classroom language. It takes a shorter period of time to learn how to order food, for instance, and much longer to learn a second language with a high enough proficiency to take a geometry test. About 60 percent of students at Central have a limited English language proficiency.