BILINGUAL PHASE-OUT MAY REQUIRE INNOVATIVE IDEAS.

Byline: Sonia Giordani Daily News Staff Writer

The Conejo Valley Unified School District is among only 21 districts in the state that maintains a strict English-only curriculum while most others provide bilingual programs with some classroom instruction in students' primary languages.

But according to the California Department of Education, about 70 percent of students with limited English proficiency actually receive no instruction in their primary languages.

Of the 1,381,000 LEP students in California, 16 percent received no special language services at all, while 11.5 percent received some assistance. Nearly 20 percent were enrolled in math and other subjects with English-language course material designed for ESL students. And more than 21 percent received English-only instruction but used part-time aides like the Conejo district.

With 1.4 percent of the students being removed from all language support at their parents' request, that leaves nearly 30 percent - or 410,157 students - enrolled in courses where students take courses in their first languages, said Fred Tempes, director of the School and District Accountability Division of the California Department of Education.

``Despite some of the rhetoric we have been hearing lately, most of the kids in the state are getting English-only instruction,'' he said.

With the passage of Proposition 227 mandating the dismantling of traditional bilingual programs, more innovative programs may emerge as models to follow.

But there is some question how effective Conejo's program - tailored to meet the needs of its own diverse student population - would be in another district.

``A program like Conejo's that is English-only with support staff was really the type of thing tailored for smaller districts with multiple languages,'' Tempes said. ``It does not necessarily lend itself to districts with a predominant second-language group.''

Whereas Conejo needed to develop a program to meet the needs of a diverse population, the bilingual programs in western Ventura County, as in Los Angeles, were built on one or two predominant language groups. Depending on how Proposition 227 is implemented, those programs could be completely overhauled.

Tempes said that perhaps the most contentious part of Proposition 227 is its time constraint - mandating that students have one year to learn English well enough to require no additional help.

``Proposition 227 does not say we can't offer primary language support. But I guess the question is what happens at the end of one year,'' said Claudia Spelman, coordinator of pupil services for the Conejo district.