Santa Monica Immersion celebrates 25 years

Madelyn ShaughnessyStaff WriterThe Santa Monica Immersion program is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. The kindergarten through 12th grade program teaches English and Spanish side-by-side, providing students with strong foundations in language and culture.According to senior Crystal Hwang, president of the Samo Immersion Club, Edison Elementary is where most of the students begin their “immersion journey.”  When the school first opened, half of the school was in dual immersion, learning both English and Spanish.Slowly, the program spread to the entire school and is now one of fifteen immersion programs in the nation.According to the Samo Immersion Program Coordinator Claudia Bautista-Nicholas, students begin in kindergarten only speaking Spanish and are introduced to English as they get older, speaking only 10 to 20 percent of the time in English.  In fifth grade, students take most of their classes in English, with only about an hour in Spanish.  The idea is to have these students go through high school with 60 percent of their learning in English and 40 percent in Spanish.“It’s this lovely cycle that we’re creating with the program,” Bautista-Nicholas said. “It begins at Edison, moves to John Adams, then Samo and ends with [the students] coming back to be teachers in the program.”According to Hwang, the imersion program creates a strong sense of community and a support system for the students.“The immersion program is very important to us.  A great percentage of us have been members of the immersion program since kindergarten and we’ve become a family because of this.  We know each other very well, we support each other and we even keep each other ‘in check’ if necessary,” Hwang said.  “This program is also known to make sure its members fulfill their A-G requirements for college and sometimes even helps those who have not graduated do so and continue their academic journey in college.”Students find this program very rewarding; they become completely bilingual and are given great future prospects.According to Bautista-Nicholas, at the end of the year they have a celebration to congratulate the students who have completed the program.  They plan to have the alumni come to this year’s celebration and talk with the students, or share a video of them and their experiences in the program.“We really want to highlight the program — it’s so unique,” Bautista Nicholas said.  “A lot of our kids are graduating and going into four-year colleges, strong in two languages and most of them take two AP’s in Spanish. It’s a very strong program and we’re just trying to make it even stronger.”According to Bautista-Nicholas, a lot of students from other immersion programs around Los Angeles move to Santa Monica just to join the immersion program.However, the other classes offered to students at John Adams and Samo, including choir, band and art often pose problems for immersion students.  The students are intrigued to join the other classes or extra curricular activities, but do not want to leave their immersion classes.“They have to make choices; there’s a part of them that wants to stay together and there’s a part of them that wants to explore new things. It’s been thirteen years,” Bautista-Nicholas said.However, Bautista-Nicholas believes that the biggest challenge the program faces is a lack of publicity.  A lot of people are unaware that this program is happening in their city, let alone in their school.“People don’t realize what a gem we have in this program,” Bautista-Nicholas said.  “We’re opening up so many doors for these kids and they are completely bi-literate and bi-cultural. They are amazing.”mshaughnessy@thesamohi.com