Pictured is Victoria Adame, second grade DLI student. Photo provided by Warsaw Community Schools.

Press Release

WARSAW — Warsaw Community Schools’ second through sixth-grade students in the Spanish Dual Language Immersion program recently completed the STAMP assessment as a measure of their proficiency in the Spanish language.

The STAMP assessment measures the students’ proficiency in all four language domains: listening, speaking, reading and writing. WCS staff are pleased to report that students are currently outperforming national norms and exceeding benchmark expectations.

Since entering kindergarten, these students have been immersed in academic Spanish for half of the day and academic English for half of the day. The goal of the DLI program is to create students who are bilingual, biliterate, and bicultural while maintaining high academic standards for success.

Next year, the DLI program plans to expand to fifth grade at Leesburg Elementary School; Lakeview Middle School will also receive its first DLI students as Eisenhower’s current sixth-grade students continue to seventh grade.

Middle school DLI students will take a full year of DLI Spanish, which is a high school level course to prepare for the Spanish AP exam in ninth grade. They will also take a half-year Culture, History and Media course, which will be heavily focused on writing, literature and presentation skills.

The district is committed to the success of the K-12 DLI program and values the opportunities that it provides for students.

“I want to thank all of the teachers, parents, students and administrators who helped WCS pioneer dual language instruction in this district,” said Dr. Dani Barkey, Warsaw Schools’ deputy superintendent. “The data that our students are producing is a testament to the hard work that everyone has put into this innovative program.”