YPSILANTI, Mich. (WXYZ) — The Spanish immersion program in Ypsilanti has been growing since 2021. Once spread out across different schools, now it finally has a home.
Watch Carli's report in the video player below
“Being able to make this our own and being able to thrive and have all of our students thrive and have our own space was just the best news we could’ve gotten," said Celeste Green, the principal of Ypsilanti Puentes Multilingual School. “Puentes in Spanish is bridges, so we say we’re a bridge to excellence, we’re a bridge to brilliance.”
The school is part of Ypsilanti Community Schools, and Green said it's the first of it's kind in Washtenaw County.
“So they come in, in Kindergarten," Green said. "I don’t care if you are an English speaker, a native English speaker at home or a native Spanish speaker, you walk into that classroom and the teacher is going to say, 'Hola buenos días. Cómo estás?' If you’ve never heard that before, the little ones, for a minute, might look surprised, but by October, November they’re understanding what the teacher is saying.”
In the immersion program for four years now, fourth grader John Carlo is completely bilingual, a prime example of the program's success.
“This school is pretty much a blessing that we have, and I pretty much just only want to come to this school," John said
That kind of impact is why Sarah Argueta Reyes drives 30 minutes every day to bring her son here.
“Obviously you are going to have those people that are going to be like, 'you had your child here in America, why not just have him learn English?'" I brought up.
“Yeah, and the other big question is, there’s a lot of concern too with people that are unfamiliar with multilingual children that say things like, 'Oh 90 percent of his instruction is in Spanish? When is he going to learn to read in English? When’s he going to learn English?' He needs to know it not just because it’s his culture but it’s a huge future for him," she replied.
Right now, the school runs Kindergarten to fourth grade, but they're not stopping there. The goal is to expand all the way to eighth grade, creating opportunity for more students.
“I really believe it is a level of brilliance that you see opening up in students that should be available to everyone and for YCS to be that bold and to know that if we do this with fidelity and we do this right, that this is what’s going to happen, we’re going to see our kids flourish and that is what we’re seeing," Green said.
