A sea of red opposite a sea of green reflected the community’s divided opinions over a Mandarin Immersion program for elementary school students during Tuesday night’s school board meeting.

Over 80 community members attended, many dressed in red or green to indicate if they were for or against Mandarin Immersion, respectively. After the five school board members shared their stances on the issue, community members had an opportunity to voice their opinions to the board.

The current plan for Mandarin Immersion, proposed by the Mandarin Immersion Feasibility Study on Dec. 12, suggests the creation of two immersion classes at Ohlone for the 2007-08 school year. Each class would be offered to first grade and kindergarten students who, together, would pilot the programs for three years. However, this plan raises controversy, as opponents pointed out, in its lottery student selection process. Additionally, the program may endanger Palo Alto’s other neighborhood schools.

All five students who spoke at the meeting were in favor of Mandarin Immersion.

"After-school programs are definitely not as effective as immersion programs," said Max Keeler, a Gunn junior and alumnus of the district’s initial Spanish Immersion class at Escondido Elementary School. "We’re known as a liberal district and we need to lead the way in reform."

Gunn junior, Molly Kawahata, a fellow Spanish Immersion alumna and student school board member, also spoke out in favor of Mandarin Immersion.

"Mandarin is instrumental in today’s global community and being fluent opens up a plethora of careers for these students," Kawahata said. "Students of the immersion program do not only benefit from knowing two languages but from gaining analytical thinking skills that serve them well in many other nonlinguistic-related subjects?I do not see immersion programs as an attempt to induce superior education to a few, but rather a step in the direction of creating more multilingual, multicultural students at a very young age."

Proponents of Mandarin Immersion say that immersion, as opposed to after-school classes, is the best way to learn a language. Advocates also note Mandarin’s increasing prominence in this global society and inexpensive cost to the district.

However, many community members argued against Mandarin Immersion because language instruction should be for all students and it should not break up community schools.

"I don’t believe an immersion program for two percent of the population is the right way to start," said James Taylor, parent of a Palo Alto second-grader. "In 12 years, 50,000 students will have gone through Palo Alto elementary schools and a very small percentage will have any foreign language instruction at all. We should be ashamed because that is pathetic."

With the exception of board president Camille Townsend, all board members came out against Mandarin Immersion.

"Bringing foreign language to all elementary school students is a high priority, but the cost is high," Vice President Dana Tom said. "It is more important to serve the greater number of people. Many valuable programs cost little to start and are cost neutral, like a math initiative and a writing initiative, and these affect every elementary school student. Those have a much broader impact."

Board members Gail Price and Mandy Lowell agree with Tom.

"There are more pressing needs in the district," Lowell said. "It is a good program, but the pluses don’t outweigh the minuses."

"As a public school system our primary goal is to serve as many students as we can," Price said. "There are scores and scores of opportunities for anyone interested in learning Mandarin. It is not our job to provide the opportunity. Our job is to serve the students that are here and the students that are arriving."

Board member Barb Mitchell expressed concern over a location for the program.

"We are experiencing elementary school overflow," Mitchell said. "We can’t place all students at their neighborhood school. We are also facing five year growth projections of 400 additional elementary students and at present we don’t have seats for those kids. I don’t want to make decisions at this point which could limit our choices in terms of the facilities we have."

According to Mitchell, the district’s choice programs fall "within the range of district demographics," but 50 percent of the families in the Mandarin Immersion program would be native Mandarin speakers.

"To describe this as open enrollment, we need enrollment that looks more like the district as a whole," Mitchell said. "It’s not going to feel open if a prerequisite for fifty percent of the students is one that people don’t have to achieve by will."

In contrast to the rest of the board, Townsend argued in favor of Mandarin Immersion. "This is a great opportunity to give our children the choice of a second language," Townsend said. "Any opportunity we put off another day to give our students a choice is a mistake…Not everybody in this district is as wealthy as we believe ourselves to be. Because the public schools gave us access to programs that we didn’t have access to, we learned skills. It is a public school duty to offer the languages that enrich their [students’] lives."

Other recommendations presented to the board included the Foreign Language in Elementary Schools, FLES, and a Mandarin Immersion summer program. The FLES plan, which would provide foreign language to all elementary students, received support from Townsend and Mitchell. However, the price for the program is estimated to be $1.35 to $2.1 million. The summer immersion program received support from some board members, however Price and Mitchell criticized the lack of a cohesive foreign language strategy. Mitchell says, "Summer school, it’s a good concept, but without a world language strategy, we are implementing something without a concept."

The board will vote on Mandarin Immersion at the Jan. 30 meeting.