CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In the past 10 years, the Hispanic and Latino community has grown exponentially, making up the largest ethnic population growth in Mecklenburg County.
Now, the Charlotte Bilingual Preschool has a new program with the goal of growing the number of bilingual educators.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Hispanic and Latino populations are Mecklenburg County's fastest-growing ethnic community
Charlotte Bilingual Preschool is offering this program to its students' families. The program essentially serves as a pipeline for family members to join the teaching profession so they can then help educate the Spanish-speaking students in our community.
At the Charlotte Bilingual Preschool, children are taught in both Spanish and English. Principal Marta Duran said having bilingual teachers is crucial for kids who come from Spanish-speaking families
“When the Latino students go through the school system, a lot of them don’t graduate," Duran said.
Duran said in many cases, the blame is the language barrier.
“If your teacher doesn’t speak your language, and you have to put your language aside, it's like you have to put all your knowledge in a little box while you learn another language," Duran said.
Because of this, Duran said it creates an education gap that can cause Latinx students to fall behind.
“That gap doesn’t get smaller, it doesn’t shrink," Duran said. "It gets bigger and bigger and bigger."
It's why preschoolers are no longer the only ones being taught at the school.
“We believe in a two-generational approach where we serve the students and their families," Duran said.
Family members of students are now able to join a program at the school that will allow them to earn an early childhood education degree through a partnership with Central Piedmont Community College.
“100% of our participants and the students are immigrants in the city," Susana Jerez, the director of the program, said.
The organization is receiving two competitive grants to assist in the efforts: $200,000 from NewSchools Venture Fund and $10,000 from Smart Start of Mecklenburg County.
Jerez said thanks to new grants, they’ve been able to expand.
“We started with 12 people and now we have 72 participants," Jerez said.
Jerez said not only does it provide an opportunity for economic mobility, it also provides new hope of closing the education gap for Spanish-speaking youth.
“Hopefully we can make a dent on the availability of teachers who are trained in dual language," Jerez said.
Duran said they serve roughly 100 kids now but their goal is to serve 1,500 Latinx children in Mecklenburg county by 2030, and believes this program will help give them the teachers to do it.