A Principal’s Folly, A Student’s Gain

*An interesting take on the Texas elementary school principal who was fired after prohibiting her students from speaking Spanish on campus. Fox’s Rick Sanchez takes a sand in favor of language immersion, saying the principal was actually helping the second-language-learning students, as he was helped when he was a young Cuban exile. But I understand immersion to be specific to a classroom, not a school yard during recess. I may be wrong. Either way, there is an issue of cultural respect that may not have been defended during Sanchez’s youth – it matters now, enough to have a principal fired. VL

By Rick Sanchez, Fox News Latino

There is trouble brewing 50 miles northwest of Houston Texas and I’m not sure it isn’t just a whole lot to do about nothing. It happened after a middle school principal was told her services were no longer needed because she had apparently insulted the sensibilities of the area’s mostly Latino residents.

Amy Lacey was first placed on administrative leave, and then she was given the official “adios” by the Hempstead school board when it chose to not renew her contract.

Her offense: prohibiting Spanish. The incident occurred on December 12th when Lacey took to the school’s intercom to announce that speaking Spanish anywhere on campus would be prohibited.

I speak from experience when I say that Lacey is correct to mandate English among Hispanic students, because those of us who arrived in the U.S. as immigrants, or as a refugee in my case, know fully well that in order to learn a new language we must not allow ourselves to use our native language as a crutch.

Click HERE to read the full story.