Henrico Schools' Spanish immersion program shows big gains for student attendance, academic success

Students in the English-Spanish immersion program at Elizabeth Holladay Elementary are 97% less likely to be chronically absent than their peers, according to Henrico Schools officials.

HCPS established its first dual language immersion program, which serves a group of kindergarten through second-grade students at Holladay, in August 2021. Classes are taught in both English and Spanish every day, and the K-2 cohort is evenly split between native English speakers and native Spanish speakers.

The “two-way, 50-50” program model helps English-speaking students learn Spanish and Spanish-speaking students learn English simultaneously, according to HCPS Director of Secondary Teaching and Learning Taylor Snow.

“It prioritizes students learning from one another and creates incredibly powerful experiences for our students,” he said. “And it has helped to engage families for whom language and culture barriers may have proven a hurdle in the past.”

The program has led to significant gains in student attendance and engagement, with students in the immersion program on average 97% less likely to be chronically absent than other K-2 students at Holladay.

“When we are looking at programs and implementation, I think that this is such a success story,” Henrico School Board Chair Alicia Atkins said. “There’s some real heart because you’re embracing the entire experience. . . We’re looking at culture very deeply at Holladay. We’re looking at equity very deeply.”

Students in the program also scored higher in both English and math than other Holladay students this school year. The percentage of dual language students that were at or above grade level was 18.5% higher than non-DLI students on English assessments and 4% higher on math assessments.

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Divided into two classrooms each day, DLI students spend half of the day learning academic content in English and English language arts, and the other half learning content in Spanish and Spanish language arts.

Students are taught to speak, read and write in both languages.

But even with more time spent on learning two languages, which means less time spent on other content areas, DLI students are still “exceeding goals” in both math and English, Snow said.

“Even though students may not spend as much time engaged in reading and writing in English as their peers, they’re spending more time thinking deeply about language and how it’s applied in truly authentic settings,” he said. “Our budding bilinguals are not only growing as readers and mathematicians, they’re doing so at a rate that’s on or above the rate of their peers.”

During the past five years, HCPS has seen a boom in its English-learner population, with 1,866 new English-learner students – the majority being Spanish speakers – enrolled in the division. English-learners are the fastest growing demographic in HCPS, and the number of Hispanic and Latino students also has grown significantly in recent years.

Choosing Holladay Elementary as the site for the Spanish immersion program was “very intentional” and based on the demographics of the community, HCPS Superintendent Amy Cashwell said. Holladay has a majority of Hispanic students (42.6%) and a large number of English-learners (29.1%).

The dual immersion program has helped to foster more engagement in the school among Spanish-speaking families, Snow said. Holladay holds multiple community and family events for the DLI program each year, including quarterly parent advisory meetings and coffee talks, helping to engage families that may have been hesitant to attend school events before because of language or cultural barriers.

“It’s building bridges within the community,” Tuckahoe District school board member Marcie Shea said. “And we know strong communities build strong schools, and here we’re seeing strong schools build strong communities.”

Since 2021, the immersion program has expanded by a grade level each year, starting with a kindergarten cohort and now serving up to second grade. In August 2023, Holladay Elementary also launched a pre-kindergarten cohort, in which students in a single classroom learn in Spanish and English each day from a licensed teacher and instructional assistant, both of whom are bilingual.

During the next three years, HCPS will expand the program to upper elementary, starting with third grade this upcoming 2024-2025 school year. The school system also plans to launch a middle school dual immersion program in 2027-2028, when the current second grade cohort at Holladay reaches sixth grade, but officials have not yet selected a middle school.

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HCPS leaders are also looking to add immersion programs at other elementary schools and possibly expand the program to a high school in the future.

Currently, only K-2 students zoned for Holladay Elementary can participate in the program, and English-speaking students must join in pre-k, kindergarten, or first grade. All other HCPS students can begin learning a foreign language such as Spanish starting in sixth grade.

But staffing for the program could be a challenge when it comes to expansion, Cashwell said.

Teachers who instruct the Spanish part of the program must be both licensed in elementary education (or in a content area for middle school) and be a native Spanish speaker.

“That’s certainly something we’re all very interested in. . . how we might scale [the program] up or even look at other languages beyond Spanish where the home school community may benefit,” Cashwell said. “But as you can imagine, there are a number of challenges related to staffing that go along with this.”

Expanding the immersion program to high school could help address the higher levels of chronic absenteeism often seen among high school students, Three Chopt District school board member Madison Irving said.

“I think we would be missing out on a huge opportunity to just look at this at the younger levels and not take it also to the higher levels where high school students are more likely to be chronically absent than anybody else,” he said. “And I see no reason why this reduction [in absenteeism] probably couldn’t occur at those levels as well.”

Maintaining the 50-50 balance between the number of native English-speaking students and Spanish-speaking students is a priority when expanding the program, HCPS Chief Learning Officer Lesley Hughes said, not only to promote academic learning but also cross-cultural social interactions.

Hughes said she is also confident that based on the success of the program, HCPS will be able to recruit enough teachers to expand to middle school and beyond.

“I think this program is getting a lot of recognition,” she said. “People are talking about it, sharing our successes. We have data to show that it’s working.”

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Liana Hardy is the Citizen’s Report for America Corps member and education reporter. Her position is dependent upon reader support; make a tax-deductible contribution to the Citizen through RFA here.