Elgin family protests daughter's exclusion from U-46 program

Agustin and Malgorzata Figueroa are trying to understand the thought process here.

The Elgin couple now has four of their five children attending Channing Elementary School.

They'd hoped the youngest of the four, 5-year-old Marisol, would be able to join her siblings in the school's Dual Language program this fall.

The family loves the magnet program, which splits a select group of students' school days and subjects between Spanish and English.

Agustin, who's a truck driver, and Malgorzata, a stay-at-home mom, say they hope the program will help their children land on their feet in the working world.

"I'll be honest with you, I have five kids," Agustin said. "I don't make enough money to send them to college. I hope they can get scholarships speaking three languages, or they can fall back into a good job."

Dual language classes at Channing, capped at 25 students, often have waiting lists. Fifty students were accepted to this year's kindergarten program, according to district data, though dozens more tested to be accepted to the program.

On the waiting list this year are 28 students, including Marisol.

Here's where things get tricky.

Augustin and Malgorzata say they can't understand why Marisol didn't get into the program.

They were told she didn't test high enough. But she's a bright child, speaking English, along with bits of Polish and Spanish at home. She also has older siblings in the program.

According to an Elgin Area School District U-46 document outlining admission procedures for the program, students within Channing's attendance boundaries and siblings of students already in the program have admission priority.

Marisol fits both categories.

The family sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the district asking for procedures and guidelines used to admit students into this year's dual language kindergarten classes.

They also asked for a breakdown of whether each student admitted was English speaking or Spanish speaking, and if they were coming to the program from inside Channing's attendance boundaries or outside.

According to the response, not a single native English speaking student within Channing's attendance boundaries was admitted into the kindergarten program; compared to 11 native Spanish speaking students within those boundaries; and 25 English speaking students and 14 Spanish speaking students outside the school's boundaries.

"I was in shock," Agustin Figueroa said. He and his wife went to speak with school principal Ernest Gonzalez, but said they were given the runaround.

The Daily Herald, has repeatedly attempted to contact Gonzalez in the past week about the school's admissions policies.

In an e-mail early Tuesday evening, Gonzalez said only that "date of interest is the main admissions criteria."

The Figueroas did not attend an orientation meeting at the end of April about the program, because, they say, they were already well versed in it because of their other children.

"I did not feel that we needed to go to the meeting," Agustin Figueroa said.

The family says they're doing everything they can to get Marisol into the program. They've spoken to the school board, and a local lawyer. In the meantime, Marisol attends regular kindergarten classes at Channing.

"Maybe we'll even try to put her in the dual language kindergarten again next year," Agustin Figueroa said. "I want to try everything."