Ethel Phillips Transitional Bilingual Program
Grades K-3

The Transitional Bilingual Program utilizes Spanish as the primary language of instruction from kindergarten through grade 3. The mission of this program is to transition Spanish-speaking students into mainstream classrooms by the third grade. In kindergarten, 90 percent of the instruction is provided in Spanish and the remaining 10 percent is done in English. As the students matriculate through grades one, two and three, the percentage of Spanish instruction is gradually reduced and English is increased by 10 percent. Afterwards, gradually adhering to the transition of the students to instruction in English, the goals are to facilitate the content classes, to develop their literary abilities, and to get students to become fluent in their own native language. This method will facilitate a transition from the Spanish into English language in a less stressful way for the students.