ABSTRACT
This chapter tells the story of how a school district started a high-school dual language (DL) program without a DL feeder program and explores the transformative power this decision had for participating teachers and students. While many school districts roll out DL programs in a linear fashion—starting with pre-K, first, and second grade and slowly growing the program into secondary schools over time—educational leaders in this district felt there was no time to waste; emerging bilingual, immigrant, and Spanish-heritage students at the secondary level deserved a bilingual program now. The chapter begins describing the context and process of implementing DL at the secondary level, including the program model and two teacher testimonios, Ms. Ornales (DL biology in Spanish) and Ms. Uribe (DL English 1 & 2 pre-AP). The end of the chapter provides teaching notes on how the program positively transformed the linguistic, academic, and professional identities of both teachers and students within accompanying discussion questions. The chapter demonstrates the way decision-making driven by educational equity and critical consciousness including critical listening, engaging in discomfort, interrogating power, acompañamiento, and affirming identities can fundamentally change the academic trajectories of students who have been historically linguistically marginalized.
