WARSAW — A program for kindergartners at Eisenhower Elementary School that has kids spending half of the school day learning completely in Spanish and the second half of the day completely in English is seeing results.

Five kindergartners attended the Warsaw Community School’s Board of Trustee’s meeting on Monday, Nov. 14, to demonstrate to the trustees how fluent they have become in Spanish after only roughly three months participating in the 50-50 immersion program.

Eisenhower Principal Chris Gensinger made a point to acknowledge the fact that this program is not designed to only teach students Spanish, but to teach them content in Spanish.

“This isn’t about teaching Spanish, it’s about teaching content,” said Gensinger.

Teacher Maria Burns led the kids in a program for the trustees that demonstrated the kids could answer questions in Spanish and hold conversations.

The 50-50 program will not stop for students after kindergarten though, teachers and administrators are already planning how they can continue this program as the kids progress throughout grades.

Gensinger estimates by the time these kids are in third or fourth grade, they will be able to speak Spanish at an intermediate level.

Board member Randy Polston commented, “Chris, this is amazing.”

Jasen Gibbens, who heads a manufacturing program at Warsaw High School brought several of his students to talk about what they had been learning during their “Manufacturing Mondays” Club. Student Rikki Oland stated they meet every Monday during the school year after school hours to work on various manufacturing projects. Some are already certified welders and all the students of the club indicated they planned to go into a welding career after high school.

During the superintendent’s report, Superintendent David Hoffert mentioned that student enrollment has stayed flat at 7,052 students.