Immigrant Parents Push to Protect English Classes - washingtonpost.com: Each year, Fairfax County classrooms serve more than 20,000 students who are learning English as a second language. They also serve many of their parents.
More than 8,000 foreign-born adults enroll in classes annually through the county's adult and community education program. They study English grammar and are taught about getting ahead in a new country. The courses are offered in public schools, and the fee, which works out to about $2 an hour, is subsidized by the school system.
But as the School Board seeks to close a $250 million budget gap, funding for the adult English classes could be trimmed and the course fee could increase, potentially by a few hundred dollars a class. Dozens of students born in China, Nicaragua, Italy and other corners of the world attended a public hearing last month to urge the School Board to maintain the funding that keeps the classes affordable to new immigrants.
'Without English, we are separated from our children, separated from the school, separated from the society,' said Efrem Ghebremedhin, an Eritrean immigrant. He said the course was an important first step in getting a good job.
