Guest Letter: Park City School District is Making Great Strides to Help Hispanic Students

I received a letter from a Friend of the Park Rag. She has been involved in the Park City School District for many years. She wanted to make sure that the community was aware of many of the good things the school district is doing in order to help our Hispanic kids.

I just finished reading your post about the potential impact of the bus ride on Hispanics. Along those lines I wanted to point out some really good stuff I see going on around the district that helps Hispanics, which I only just learned about this week. At TMJH, there’s a Spanish class for native speakers. Since native speakers already have oral skills, this class focuses on reading and writing. I can’t imagine that his class is necessary to meet state foreign language requirements, so I see it as something extra the district is offering students to solidify their native language in a way they’re not getting at home. I think that’s really great.

I’ve also learned that this is the third year that Ecker has a 7th grade math class that meets every day. As you probably know, Ecker, TMJH, and PCHS have a block schedule, so every class meets every other day. But kids who are struggling in math have a special class that meets every day to help those students and make sure they don’t fall behind. One of the teachers of this class has told me that most of the kids in this class are Hispanic. So this is another positive thing the district is doing for our kids.

From having been involved with the school district for many years, I can tell you that our district is going to extraordinary lengths to help our lower performing kids, most of whom are Hispanic.