The New Rochelle School District has eliminated the position of Director of English as a Second Language (ESL), a job held for many years by Estee Lopez whom Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak recently called a “world-renowned language expert”. Instead of having one of the world’s foremost authorities on languages working full-timne on ESL, the District instead has eliminated the position altogether while expanding the responsibilities of Juan Mendez, the current head of the Foreign Language/English as a Second Language Department, and created an entirely new position called Supervisor of World Languages, K-12.
I am torn on this one. On the hand I am glad to see the District cutting costs by merging these two positions. On the other hand, the hispanic students are proving to be the most “at risk” students when it comes to on-time graduation from high school. I expect there will be some parents who will not be happy to see the elimination of a standalone ESL Department.
The Board Resolution:
The Job Description:
Why did this happen? I am
Why did this happen? I am going to 9th grade net month and I was in the CILA/SILA program since kindergarten. Ever since then she has been very helpful, come a couple of times every year, and even knows everybody’s name! And this year at ALMS, when most of us had complaints against the SILA 8 teacher, both Juan Mendez and Estee Lopez came, the person who helped us the most was her, especially since Mr. Mendez was a little mean towards us, and plus he couldn’t even read good in Spanish! When the teacher Mrs. Barroso resigned, Ms. Lopez is that one that subbed sometimes, while Mr. Mendez took 5 WEEKS to find a new teacher…I think this is very unfair…