Following contentious discussions in November and December about possible program cuts, Eanes ISD will convene a task force for its Spanish immersion program in February.

“While it has been relatively quiet in the three weeks after returning from the vacation, I can assure you we’ve been hard at work,” Superintendent Jeff Arnett said.

Launched in 2017, the Futuro Spanish Immersion program is a language program offering Spanish and English instruction to select students in EISD. The program is offered at four of the district’s six elementary schools: Bridge Point, Cedar Creek, Eanes and Barton Creek elementary schools.

EISD staff made a recommendation to the board in October to restructure the program to give teachers more flexibility in their instruction time, along with other benefits. The proposed model would cut the program roughly in half from 30-40 students per grade level to 22.

Parents and community members showed up at the following school board meeting in late November to protest the program reduction, citing the program as a major draw for many parents to send their students to EISD. The district held a community meeting for parents in December to answer questions about the program and proposed changes.

At the Jan. 24 meeting, Arnett announced the formation of a task force to determine the state of the program moving forward. The task force will include 30 parents with a range of stakes in the program:

• Four parents from each Spanish immersion campus with a student in the program (16 total);
• Two parents from each Spanish immersion campus without a student in the program (eight total);
• Three parents from Valley View Elementary School; and
• Three parents from Forest Trail Elementary School.

The task force will additionally include an independent facilitator to moderate community discussions, along with subject experts able to provide insight into the decision.

“We’re in the process now of identifying the individuals, and we’ll very soon be reaching out to those individuals representing each of the campuses as well as different viewpoints that we know are interested in this topic,” Arnett said.

Discussion surrounding possible action on these changes will likely take until at least the end of the current school year, if not into next fall, Arnett said.

The full presentation of recommendations to the board is available here. More details about the proposed changes are available on the district's website.