Professional development was also lacking, leaving bilingual teachers to rely on the skills they came in with, which often led to classes being taught primarily in English with Spanish sprinkled in. In the end, students were not emerging from the schools proficient in the two languages as some parents expected.

“Every school has been managing their own model — doing what best serves the limited resources they have and what they thought they could pull together, but it wasn’t actively managed by the central office,” said Steve Holmes﻿, TUSD assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

By having consistent training and materials districtwide and by providing support, TUSD Superintendent H.T. Sanchez﻿ said he hopes teachers will not abandon the bilingual model simply because they are not comfortable with their ability to convey a science lesson in Spanish or because they struggle designing lessons. School principals have also had to commit to using the model consistently in all grades.

While research has shown that students in dual-language settings need more support in the early years, once they achieve proficiency after the third grade, they perform at high levels, often outscoring their monolingual peers on the SAT and ACT, Sanchez said.