This story is part of Young Brains, Huge Stakes, a new series from KVPR. Read more stories here.
DELHI, Calif. — In Beatriz Amador’s home, learning Spanish is a necessity.
“It's not really an option for us,” Amador said. “It’s kind of a given.”
Amador said her parents only speak Spanish, so her son must learn it, too. However, the need for bilingualism isn’t unique to her family — it’s something her 4-year-old students also need.
Amador teaches transitional kindergarten at Schendel Elementary School in the Merced County community of Delhi. Most of her students come from Spanish-speaking homes, she said, and that’s why she runs a dual language immersion class. It’s taught in both English and Spanish.
“We're doing everything in two languages,” Amador said.
Classes made up of multilingual students aren’t exclusive to Delhi. Data shows more than half of California children under 5 speak a language other than English at home. Dual immersion classes are meant to help those children by strengthening their bilingualism and biliteracy.
But a data analysis by KVPR reveals only 13% of San Joaquin Valley school districts offer dual immersion classes at the transitional kindergarten level, despite nearly one in five Valley K-12 students being classified as English learners.
That percentage is lower than the state as a whole, where dual language class offerings, on average, more closely mirror the English learner population.
Carolyne Crolotte, the director of policy for early age at the non-profit education policy organization Early Edge, suspects the Valley could be lagging in providing dual immersion classes because of a lack of teachers with both a bilingual certification and early childhood education training.
“We definitely need more investments in bilingual teachers, more investments in TK teachers with that specialized training and serving young children in developmentally appropriate practice,” she said.
These outcomes are especially troubling right now, because recent changes to the state education system mean it’s unclear how many TK students may need language resources.
A state law in 2024 stopped screening TK students for proficiency in English. Researchers had determined the traditional test was developmentally inappropriate, but the result is now fewer resources being dedicated to TK students learning English.
The state is creating a new test, but it won’t roll out for two more years. In the meantime, education experts say dual immersion classes can close those gaps by way of their curriculum, but only if they’re offered to students who need them.
A new test for four-year-olds
The English Language Proficiency Assessment for California, otherwise known as the ELPAC is given to multilingual learners from kindergarten through 12th grade in order to identify their level of English proficiency. Prior to the 2024-25 school year, TK students were also tested using the same assessment until a bill was passed that eliminated the use of the ELPAC for those in TK classes.
Crolotte said Early Edge, which focuses on early childhood development, co-sponsored that bill, which also allocated $10 million to creating a new assessment specifically designed for TK students.
“The ELPAC assessment was really designed for kindergarten-age children, but then also field-tested for those older four-year-olds,” Crolotte said. “And so as we were expanding TK to include younger and younger four-year-olds, it was really questionable about the developmental appropriateness of that assessment for those younger children — especially those very young children that are barely turning four as they enter TK.”
Crolotte said using the old test led to many students potentially being misidentified, which could result in diminished resources.
“If we have kids that are wrongly classified, then you have resources of assessment being used and you just conflate your problem,” agreed Anya Hurwitz, the executive director and president of the nonprofit organization SEAL, which focuses on dual language learner education.
Crolotte said the state is currently looking at existing screeners in other states, and will be selecting one by the end of March.
But even once the new assessment is created, Hurwitz believes more language immersion is needed for every grade.
“It's an equity issue for our immigrant students and for our multilingual English learner students,” Hurwitz said. “When our schools ignore their home language, or when, in fact, they treat it as a deficit, there is tremendous harm that's done.”
She said building multilingualism starts with school districts integrating home language into learning and hiring more multilingual teachers.
“We have this initial opportunity that kids and families make the connection to our schools, and they feel like they're being partnered with,” Hurwitz said. “So if we miss that opportunity, there will be collateral damage along the way.”
English-only instruction can lead to stigma
Immersive education in languages other than English is a relatively new concept in California. Bilingual instruction was banned in 1998 in favor of “English-only requirements” in schools, and the ban was only lifted in 2016. Still, Crolotte said the ban left some lingering effects.
“We saw a lot of families not wanting their children to learn the home language,” Crolotte said. “A lot of myths out there around second language acquisition – that it can cause confusion, language delays – rather than focusing on the benefits.”
Indeed, Juliana Zamudio, a mother of four in Delhi, said she’s heard of those misconceptions before, but the district’s support in bilingualism stopped her family from believing in those herself.
“There hasn’t been discrimination in that sense. Everything seems equitable. Everyone is treated the same – as equally important,” she said in Spanish.
Other parents in Merced County have latched onto more positive beliefs about bilingualism in recent years. In February, a Merced County dual language program was saved from shutting its doors after parents heavily campaigned for the decision to be reversed. The county’s largest school district, Merced City School District, also added a dual immersion program this school year.
Studies have also shown the benefits of bilingualism, including that having a strong foundation in someone’s native language helps students learn English. One study also pointed out TK in California in particular had large effects on dual language learners’ proficiency in English and academic skills.
Conversely, Amador, the TK teacher in Delhi, worries the lack of multilingual classes could be a detriment to multilingual students.
“Those students might get a stigma in other classrooms as the problem child, the one that can't focus,” she said.
When multilingual children enter English-only programs, Crolotte said, they tend to lose their home language.
Because of this, experts agree dual language classes are vital for mental and social health. And if they’re not available, resources to maintain home language need to be.
“The interrelationship between academic success, child development, more broadly socio-emotional development, language development — it's all very interwoven,” Hurwitz said. “When a 4-year-old comes to school and they feel cared for and validated, their socio-emotional health is set up to thrive.”
Dual language is critical to ‘culture’
At Amador’s school, TK students are thriving in their dual immersion classes. Recently, they were learning about sea animals’ bodies, like the paws of an otter in Spanish and English.
Amador says her students are doing better academically than she’s seen before, even though they’re younger than the students in years past.
“Their phonics and their letter knowledge is surpassing their peers from years before, and so that was astonishing for me,” she said.
As an alum of Schendel Elementary herself, she’s proud of how far the district has come in accepting what parents want for their students. She maintained her Spanish for her family, but she’s looking forward to each class of hers maintaining theirs too.
She said it’s not just about academic success. They’re also keeping their cultural identity by passing on learning and heritage from one generation to the next.
“That's important, you know, to keep our Spanish roots…and not only our language, our culture,” Amador said.
This article was produced as a project for the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2025 Data Fellowship.
