Schools Plan to Meet Needs of Latinos : Education: Bilingual aides, students would be encouraged to become instructors.

Long Beach Unified School District officials are developing a master plan to address the needs of non-English-speaking students and a program that would encourage bilingual aides and students to become teachers, according to a district report released this week.

The plans are in response to recommendations made earlier this year by a Hispanic Advisory Committee, which noted that the number of bilingual teachers is inadequate to serve the district’s Latino students--half of whom cannot speak English proficiently.

In response to the committee’s recommendations, schools Supt. Tom Giugni presented a 25-page report to the School Board on Monday, emphasizing the district’s commitment to serving Latino students and increasing the ranks of bilingual teachers.

While encouraged by the new plans, the Latino leaders expressed disappointment about the overall report, which they called “a rehash” of existing district programs.

They also said they were disappointed that one of their priorities--requiring teachers and administrators to learn a second language--apparently has been rejected.

The report appeared to sidestep most of their specific suggestions and offered very little in the way of future plans, committee members complained.

“It’s a rehash,” Jerome Torres, the chairman of the Hispanic Advisory Committee, told the School Board on Monday. “We already know you guys have this program and that program.”

Committee member Roberto Uranga, president of the local chapter of LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens, told the board: “We’re very disappointed with it. It was superficial.”

In his report, Giugni detailed the various programs available in areas of concern that the advisory committee cited in its report to the board last spring.

For example, the committee asked the district to develop an internship program to cultivate existing Latino staff for future administrative appointments. In his response, Giugni implied that the district is doing what it can in the area. He explained that the district’s program for leadership development includes opportunities to participate in various councils, committees, morale building programs and “other growth enhancing activities.” Among other things, each assistant superintendent keeps a list of potential administrative candidates, Giugni wrote. His response did not address the specific suggestion of creating an internship program.

Giugni’s report did, however, include some new elements. The most significant of proposed changes, according to committee members, are creating a program that would encourage bilingual aides and students to become teachers and developing a master plan for students who have limited English proficiency. One out of every four students in the district does not speak English proficiently.

Latino leaders said they are grateful to district officials for the strides that have been made.

The committee members also said they were encouraged that the teachers’ union seems willing to compromise on a committee proposal to pay bilingual teachers a higher salary.

After meeting with members of the committee, leaders of the Teachers Assn. of Long Beach agreed to consider supporting a plan that would pay bilingual teachers more when they go beyond their teaching duties, such as by helping develop the curriculum or by working with new teachers, said Felice Strauss, the union’s president.

The teacher’s union has traditionally opposed a bilingual pay differential.

While district officials avoided flatly opposing most of the recommendations, they virtually rejected what was probably the committee’s most radical suggestion: that teachers, administrators and other staff learn a second language if at least 30% of the students in their school can’t speak English.

“This is a commendable recommendation; however, the district does not view the recommendation as one of the high priority issues. . . . It would be difficult to decide on a specific second language, and a project of this magnitude would not be cost effective,” Giugni wrote.

When it was first presented this summer, the concept of requiring a second language was viewed with skepticism by most school board members, teachers’ union officials and top district administrators. But the idea was supported by the Assn. of Hispanic Educators in Long Beach. On Monday, Alan Lowenthal, the president of Long Beach Area Citizens Involved, threw in his group’s support and called the proposal “a positive development.”

“We’re very disappointed that they (district administrators) didn’t supportthe second language requirement,” Uranga said after the meeting.

As for the overall report, he said: “The language was saying, ‘We’re doing all these things, what more can we do?’ We wanted them to show us, with hard data, whether those programs are working, and what more they plan to do in the future.”

Helen Hansen, the district’s assistant superintendent of personnel services, said officials emphasized existing programs rather than those in the discussion stage.

“We wanted to put into this report things that are actually being done,”Hansen said. “(But) we have other irons in the fire.”

For example, she said officials are talking about developing a magnet schoolwith a curriculum focused on encouraging students to become teachers.

“We know what a big job we have,” Hansen said. “We’re going to keep at it until it’s completed. We’re committed.”

District administrators said they are making some progress on new bilingual hires. Between January and September of last year, for example, the district hired 20 bilingual teachers, or 10% of the 200 new hires, according to Giugni’s report. Since September of 1988, the district hired 28 bilingual teachers, or 11% of the 255 new teachers.

“Right now, we’re having a hard time finding minority applicants,” Hansen said. “It’s a state problem and a national problem.”

The National Education Assn. predicts that only one public school teacher in 20 will be a minority by the turn of the century.