No Spanish? No job, teachers told

Carolyn Hileman* | September 9, 2007

I know what the trend is, and it’s not looking good,’ educator says Spanish-speaking students are flooding into an Illinois school district so fast that teachers who educate in English only are being involuntarily transferred, and they believe there will come a time when they no longer will have a job.“I know what the trend is, and it’s not looking good,” Valerie Goranson told the Chicago Tribune. “Even if my job was saved this year, what about next year?”

She has twice lost a teaching assignment in the Waukegan district because she doesn’t speak Spanish, she said. Last year, after teaching 5th grade at North Elementary for six years, district officials moved her to Clark Elementary to make room for a Spanish-speaking teacher at North.

Now she says it’s happening again.

“I can understand why they are a little nervous,” Mary Lamping, the district’s chief academic officer, said. “If we don’t have an English-speaking population to serve, then we’re not going to need English-speaking teachers.”

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