As of Monday, March 4, the Sedona-Oak Creek School District is offering free adult English classes with free childcare for parents of students in the district on Mondays from 6 to 8 p.m. at Sedona Red Rock High School.

The program has not been offered for the past several years and Principal Heather Isom said she hoped that additional opportunities to serve Spanish-speaking parents would spring from the classes, which are taught by Sandy Immerso.

“It’s there to focus on our Spanish-speaking parents in order to have a better relationship with the school and with teachers and help the kids a little bit more,” Isom said. “We think it will improve the outcomes for some of our English language learner students. I would like to open it up to everybody. But for right now, it’s just the parents of the students … If there’s some point where more people want to join, and there’s room for that, I don’t see why that couldn’t be accomplished.”

Twenty-five participants attended the first class and about 13.5% of the 748 students currently enrolled in SOCSD are classified as English language learners.

“There has sometimes been a communication void between Spanish-speaking families and the school, and my concern is that they feel that they can’t communicate their concerns or needs to the administration,” Isom said. “Also, I want to make sure that they can help their kids whenever it’s necessary, and it’s a lot more effective to be able to help your kids with schoolwork, or with communicating with teachers, if you know the language.”

Participants are not require to register in advance and classes will still be held over spring break.

“[Immerso] says they were really excited to get started, it would be difficult to then say, ‘OK, thanks for coming. We’re not going to do it for a couple of weeks,’” Isom said. “We’re going to keep it going next week to and then throughout the end of the school year, and likely into the summer.” Isom estimated the cost of the daycare and instruction at $2,000 to $2,500.

“This has been funded with a grant and assuming that there’s continual interest in participation, and we have the continual grant funding, I would offer it indefinitely,” Isom said.

“That is coming from our Title III grants, which is an entitlement grant that specifically relates to ELL students and services,” SOCSD Governing Board Secretary Amanda Stanfield said.

“I’m hoping that I will present in one of these upcoming classes, and ask if anybody’s interested in meeting, meaning before or after once a month, so that we can discuss some of the needs,” Isom said “Because the whole purpose of this is to help families help their students and communicate with the school. So of course, I want to create [a] forum where they can do that. So it will likely come out of finding interest within this class.”

Addressing the needs of English learners has been a priority for SOCSD over the last year, which was also one of the major concerns the Sedona community expressed through the district’s resident survey for residents during its recent superintendent hiring process. The district has added two new ELL teaching positions and in July, the governing board authorized English language development courses to be classified as English language arts credits to fulfill graduation requirements at Red Rock High School.

“I’ve gotten to know these families in this last year, and I love them,” Isom said. “These are our kids, and 70% of our [student] population is Hispanic. They have strong communities, they love their children, they want the best for their children who deserve to access every educational opportunity of any other student. And if this is something that helps them do that, and it’s our responsibility to make sure that they have it.”

For more information about the English language classes, contact Maria Ortega at (928) 204-6622 or ortega@sedonak12.org.