Teachers' communication of trust and confidence, and development of a mutually respectful relationship with students, bolsters children's self-esteem and fosters a connection to school that helps inoculate them against an impulse to drop out. Experience shows that specifically recruiting teachers and administrative staff who speak Spanish and are familiar with Hispanic culture increases achievement in schools with a large Hispanic student body. Further, the school monitors teachers regularly to ensure that they are sensitive to students' culture and show respect for the students by patiently supporting their efforts to learn. Calexico believes that team teaching promotes a collective sense of responsibility and an ethos that problems are to be shared, not passed off to someone else for solving, as well as more effective student learning. The successful bilingual programs identified by HDP combine rigorous English language instruction with classroom in-struction in Spanish, and use of the Spanish language, as needed, to ensure learning in all subjects.
Most classes consist of a mix of students with widely varying English language proficiency.
The educational programs of the Calexico School District have won awards. Its bilingual program, El Cid , which was created first for its high school and later retooled for elementary school use as well, promotes proficiency in both English and Spanish. The program is research-based and continually refined to reflect new knowledge about effective bilingual practices, identified from research conducted by experts in the field and from the district's own experience. In addition to the usual ESL orientation, El Cid has a Spanish as a Second Language component for students who have lost their proficiency in Spanish. Classes are comprised of both native English speakers and students whose primary language is Spanish.