Casey Middle School

Casey is a good school in many ways, but there is a serious imbalance with respect to pressures placed on students in the bilingual track. The bilingual program is unnecessarily intense and there appears to be little interest in parent feedback. What could be a rich opportunity for a diverse group of children to learn Spanish AND core academics is instead a narrowly focused program tailored only to children who can cope with intense pressure, hours of daily homework, and an uncreative, NON-experiential approach to second-language learning. Teachers of core academics (lang. arts, science, math and social studies) repeatedly tell parents that they cannot give homework because of the extreme load placed on students by the bilingual teachers. Those teachers recognize the imbalance in the school! Parents repeatedly ask the bilingual teaches and leadership to reduce homework expectations. While school leadership claims to welcome parent input, in reality they are dismissive of parents' pleas for the bilingual program be placed in a more proper balance with other academics and appear undisturbed by the negative effect this has on students' interest in second language learning.