Hall schools now ‘growing our own’ bilingual teachers

About a dozen Hispanic students who graduated in May from West High and Johnson high schools will make up the initial class of students in an initiative designed to supply the district with a “pipeline” of bilingual teachers for the district.

 The effort is a partnership between Hall County Schools and the University of North Georgia. Beginning this fall, the freshmen will take classes for half the day at UNG’s Gainesville campus, then spend the rest of the day getting paid experience working with students in Hall County.

“For a number of years, we have had trouble recruiting bilingual educators,” said Brad Brown, executive director of human resources for Hall County Schools. “We reached out to the schools to see who is interested in becoming a teacher and what are the barriers that you face. One of the barriers was finances.”

Bilingual teachers are important as the district seeks to reach Superintendent Will Schofield’s “stretch goal” of 30 percent of graduates having a bilingual seal on their diplomas by 2020. Brown and Schofield said the seal would indicate students are proficient in two languages.

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