Weslaco ISD is planning to add a dual language academy magnet school to Rudolfo “Rudy” Silva elementary by August 2023, a move the district says will be significant.
The district announced last week that the program is slated to enroll pre-K 3 and pre-K students at the beginning of the 2023-24 school year, using a staggering enrollment schedule to follow those students through the fifth grade.
In a release, Superintendent Dino Coronado listed Weslaco’s proximity to Mexico and the need for global citizens as driving forces behind the initiative.
“This is huge,” he wrote. “What we really want to focus on is true biliteracy, where they can not only speak the language but they can also write the language and read. It’s the total literacy package that we are looking for.”
According to Coronado, the decision to move on the academy was the result of collaboration between staff members and the district’s board of trustees.
“The vision of the district is to create productive global citizens who speak multiple languages,” he wrote.
Carolina Lopez, Silva principal, will be at the helm of the academy for its inaugural year.
Lopez was recently appointed as Silva principal, and will head the implementation of the Academy’s first student cohort to begin next school year. Her goal is to create students who are bilingual.
“I am going to share a quote, ‘to know another language is to have another perspective,’” Lopez said in the release. “When a person, as an adult, has the ability to see multiple points of view, that’s where the real learning and growing happens. Not only will it help children be more marketable, if I’m an employer, I’m going to want someone who is bilingual.”
Lopez, who the release describes as a longtime bilingual education advocate, is currently developing curriculum for the academy, the goal being to create students who are bilingual, biliterate and bicultural.
“This is the planning year,” she wrote. “We are building our model.”
Application to enroll in the academy won’t open until late spring of 2023. Applying, Coronado said, is worth considering.
“We need to embrace the opportunity, especially here in the Valley where Spanish and English is prevalent,” he wrote. “You don’t come to Weslaco ISD for a traditional education because what we want to do is make it non-traditional. We want to make it fun, we want to make it creative.”
