Board to vote on arts-infused Denair charter school with Spanish immersion strand

Plans to fold Denair Elementary and the Denair Academic Avenues charter into a new charter school next year will have a critical vote Thursday night.

A five-year charter for Denair Elementary Charter Academy, opening for 2015-16, will get a final vote by the Denair Unified School District board.

The school is envisioned as having block instructional time for core subjects, with academic acceleration for strong students, according to agenda documents. A block of elective subjects will allow students to explore the arts, theater, dance, sciences and technology.

The school will offer foreign language study to all students, with one class of dual-language immersion starting this fall with kindergartners. The first-year immersion class will be taught predominantly in Spanish, shifting to being half in English by fourth grade, following the model used at the wait-listed Osborn Two-Way Immersion Academy in Turlock.

The school petition says it will pursue strong home-to-school ties for more effective learning and will regularly consult with parents and teachers about its education program.

In other business, the district will get a budget update and vote on a 2015-16 revised contract with support staff that grants three days additional sick or personal necessity leave but does not change salaries.

This story was originally published April 15, 2015 at 5:11 PM with the headline "Board to vote on arts-infused Denair charter school with Spanish immersion strand."