FUHSD Coordinator of Data and Assessment Brooke Chan delivered a presentation on the state of World Language enrollment at FUHSD schools during a FUHSD board meeting at the District Office on Tuesday, Nov. 12. After Chan’s presentation, Associate Superintendent Trudy Gross and Chan recommended that the district continue phasing out Japanese at both MVHS and Cupertino High School, as well as French at Fremont High School. Four CHS students and one MVHS student responded by recounting their experience with Japanese being phased out at their respective schools, urging the district to reconsider the plan. CHS student Katelyn Lai cites bonding experiences with classmates as well as competing in the Japan Bowl as reasons why the Japanese language program is important to her.
The presentation comes after the district phased out Japanese level one at MVHS and CHS this year. The presentation revealed that enrollment in World Language courses at MVHS continues to decline. However, the enrollment in languages other than Japanese, such as Spanish, has increased, which was one of the board’s predictions.
Senior Andrew Gu, who was the sole MVHS student speaking at the meeting, told the board that according to his survey of Kennedy Middle School students, 170 students wish to keep Japanese classes at MVHS, and 33 students want to join the program. In addition to his survey, Gu announced that his online petition received 557 signatures. While he asked the board to reverse their decision to phase out Japanese at MVHS, he admits that keeping the classes may not be feasible.
“I am of the personal belief that trying to keep Japanese at Monta Vista High School would be unrealistic,” Gu said. “I think we knew for a long time that we did not have the numbers needed to really have the class here.”
He has come to this conclusion because teachers aim for an average of 32.5 students per class, which was stated in the presentation. Although Gu believes Japanese classes are unlikely to remain at MVHS, he hopes that students will still be able to learn the language through other methods, such as community language partners or De Anza College which offer World Language credit for languages that are not taught at MVHS. Since the community language partners currently do not currently teach Japanese, he is considering pushing to include Japanese as a language offered by those partners.
“If they could polish up the community language partners system a bit better, just advertise it more, I think it would be the best option we have,” Gu said. “Because of the problems and the stats they pulled up during the meeting, it does seem that the most reasonable option right now would be focusing on those community partners.”
