Why Parents Saved The Oyster School

It's not only a good education, it's evenly balanced in Spanish and English.

By: Alexandra Starr | Source: NRTA Live & Learn | May 17, 2006

THERE AREN'T MANY Washington, D.C., public schools for which parents will camp out overnight in hopes of enrolling their children. But before the James F. Oyster Bilingual Elementary School adopted a lottery system in 2002 to allocate the few open slots for students living outside of the school’s boundaries, more than 100 D.C. parents would regularly spend a night sleeping out. The enticement: a superb bilingual education.

Oyster classes are more or less evenly divided between native English and native Spanish speakers, and instruction is 50% in English, 50% in Spanish. By the time students graduate from the so-called dual-immersion program in the sixth grade, they are fluent in both languages.

The promise of bilingualism isn’t an empty one, judging by my recent visit to one of Oyster’s sixth-grade classrooms. Even though the 22 students clearly come from a range of ethnic backgrounds, it’s difficult to detect an accent when the children speak in either language. As is the norm at Oyster, the class is led by two teachers, one Spanish-dominant and one English-dominant. In one corner of the classroom, Eduardo Gamarra, a Peruvian, quickly marches his students through a drill in irregular verbs. On the other side, Skidra Blandford has assembled the other half of the students in a semi-circle, where they ponder a statement from Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset: “To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.” The students quickly begin regaling her with stories of how they have made that connection in their own lives.

Such linguistically rich, thoughtful teaching has helped cultivate strong parent loyalty to Oyster. That bond proved critical to saving the school when it was slotted to be closed in the early 1990s. The 1926 school building was so decrepit and unsafe—it violated both fire and asbestos codes—that the school district intended to shutter it and farm students out to other schools. Oyster’s administration and parent teacher association would not allow that; eventually they crafted a solution that tapped private money to rebuild the physical plant, at no expense to taxpayers.

Behind the PTA’s Miracle. While the Oyster’s public-private partnership has won national attention, the school did have special advantages that could make its success hard to copy. In particular, Oyster benefited from an enviable location: It is near a metro stop in Woodley Park, a very desirable neighborhood. Mary Filardo, whose three children attended the school, led other Oyster parents in creating the non-profit 21st Century School Fund to attract private funding. A chunk of the playing field was offered to developers interested in building an apartment complex; in return, the developers would be expected to construct a new school. The fund helped oversee the bidding process, and the city ultimately accepted a proposal from one called LCOR Inc. Construction began in 1998.

For the next 3 years, Oyster students were shifted to a temporary location in a much less desirable part of town. “It speaks to the belief people had in the school’s mission that parents stuck with us through those years,” says Oyster Principal Marta Guzmán.

The new school was worth waiting for: The 47,158-square-foot building has indoor parking, water fountains for each classroom, and large, spacious teaching areas. Under the terms of the agreement, LCOR will not pay property taxes for 35 years, but rather is obligated to pay $804,000 annually to cover the $11 million revenue bond used to construct the new school. The Oyster deal turned out well for LCOR: Two years ago the company sold the apartment building for a profit of more than $20 million. Although the 21st Century School Fund helped guide the process, the city ultimately negotiated the deal, and Filardo believes the contract should have guaranteed the city a piece of the selling price if the apartment building were sold. Marta Guzmán’s assessment: “People in government are better at assessing political risk than economic opportunity.”

The Parents’ Involvement Goes On. Oyster is still the beneficiary of very active parent involvement: The PTA raises funds to compensate for school district cuts. They’ve picked up the tab for teachers-aide salaries and for maintaining a well-stocked library.

Parents value the cultural interchange as well as the dual-language education. Of the 409 students enrolled for the last full school year, 12% were African American; 3% Asian; 54% Hispanic; 31% Caucasian. While all across the country students generally segregate along ethnic lines by the time they reach upper elementary grades, that isn’t the case at Oyster. “The kids are so integrated as a group,” says Serena Wiltshire, a former PTA president who has three children in the school. “And it continues after the kids graduate to the local Deal Junior High School,” says Wiltshire. “Parents who have children in Deal tell me that the only cafeteria tables you see where there’s a real mix of nationalities are the ones with kids who came from the Oyster School.”

That sense of community is strengthened by the way that dual-immersion instruction casts speaking a language other than English as an asset. The traditional model for educating English-language learners—namely, pulling children out for separate catch-up classes for part of the school day—implicitly casts a non-English fluency as an obstacle. But at Oyster, the languages are equally treated and speaking both is the norm.

“Here, both English and Spanish-dominant children get a chance to shine,” says fourth-grade teacher Danielle Fuller. “That means everyone feels valued.” She reflects fondly on a native English and a native Spanish speaker she taught 2 years ago, who had become best friends and were still inseparable. “It’s hard to see where it would have happened outside of Oyster,” she says.

Bilingual in English and Spanish, Alexandra Starr has covered education for BusinessWeek and other national publications. This article was published in the Spring, 2006 issue of NRTA Live & Learn.

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