LeConte Builds on Dual Immersion Language Program

"In Mary Shogren’s kindergarten class at LeConte Elementary School, some students can’t understand a single word she says. Sitting on the floor with wide-eyed gazes, they stare at her as she reads a children’s book aloud. Some seem to understand everything, while others look puzzled.

It’s what she calls the “deer-in-the-headlights” effect. They won’t look like that much longer, Shogren says.

Most pupils in the Berkeley Unified School District prepared for their first day of school by getting pencils, backpacks and binders. Students in Shogren’s class, however, needed a lot more than a few supplies. They needed another language.

Shogren teaches lessons almost entirely in Spanish as part of the district’s dual-immersion program, designed to make children proficient in Spanish and English by fifth grade and fluent by eighth." - Berkeley Daily Planet