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A classroom rule backed by administrators at the vocational and
technical school in Mesa forbids casual conversations
among students in any language other than English. The rule has 16-year-old junior
Patricia Otero of Mesa and three of her classmates
fuming.
"I'm proud of my culture, and I'm proud of my language,"
Otero said. "What they're doing to me is walking over me."
When the girls and their parents complained to school officials this month, they
were told that speaking Spanish in a room with others who speak only English is
rude. The school pointed to a guideline in the student handbook that reads: "Use
courteous language and manners at all times."
The school also cited
Proposition 203, the state's English immersion law passed by voters in 2000.
The Arizona Department of Education said on Thursday, however, that Proposition
203 controls only what language teachers use in the classroom.
"The intention of the law was to have the classroom instruction in English,"
said Margaret Garcia-Dugan, Arizona's associate superintendent
of public instruction. "Proposition 203 does not say anything about casual
conversation."
The Arizona Attorney General's Office is looking
into the matter for possible civil rights violations, attorney general spokeswoman
Dianna Jennings said.
But Dana Saar, an assistant
principal at EVIT, said the school is within its rights. He said bilingual students
are free to speak any language they choose outside the classroom, but teachers
who speak only English need to be aware of what goes on in the classroom.
Saar compared the situation
to a court setting. He said a judge would not allow English-speaking attorneys
to converse in a second language the judge does not understand because the judge
would then be left out of the loop.
"It's the same thing as being
a teacher. The judge is responsible for the courtroom, and the teacher is responsible
for the classroom," Saar said.
He
also said the rule against Spanish is a safety issue. He said classes at EVIT
often involve machinery and sharp objects — and warnings called out need to be
understood by everybody. English, he said, is the common language.
But
Otero said she and her Spanish-speaking classmates were not causing disruptions
or safety concerns, and one of the students involved does not speak English well.
She said when somebody speaks to her in Spanish, it is second-nature for her to respond in the same
language.
When the teacher scolded the Spanish-speaking students in front
of the whole class, Otero said she was humiliated.
"One of my friends
started crying," she said.
Napoleon Pisano,
a member of the Mesa Association of Hispanic Citizens, said teachers should not
need to hear and understand every word spoken by students to maintain control
— especially in the informal, hands-on environment at EVIT.
"If
they feel so threatened by someone speaking another language, they're probably
in the wrong profession," Pisano said.
He said a classroom ban on a student's native language disregards the student's
heritage and polarizes a school. Pisano called the school's
safety concerns ignorant and regressive.
"It is an archaic belief
that speaking a foreign language is a safety concern," he said. "You
can justify any behavior by screaming national security."
Stephen
Montoya, a Phoenix civil rights attorney,
said history is replete with examples of schools trying to control the use of
foreign language in the classroom.
"Decades ago, children were punished
for speaking Spanish at school," Montoya said.
In 1998 Montoya argued
successfully in court that Arizona's constitutional amendment setting up English
as the official language went too far because it tried to restrict conversations
in languages other than English.
"The American tradition of tolerance
recognizes a critical difference between encouraging the use of English and repressing
the use of other languages,” the Arizona Supreme Court ruled in that case, Ruiz
v Hull. |
