It only gets worse. In this area, families are awarded free day care for the kids if they don't teach them English. People are actually being punished financially for being responsible and teaching English to their children: From the El Paso times 8-10-02:
Pre-k language rules unfair, parents say Whom to contact
David Peregrino
El Paso Times
Sylvia Saenz-Hernandez was appalled when her 4-year-old son, Ernesto, was turned away from a pre-kindergarten program at Omar Bradley Elementary School in the El Paso Independent School District because he speaks English.
"Imagine that -- being turned away because you speak English in America," Saenz-Hernandez, 38, said.
Saenz-Hernandez was stunned when she discovered that public pre-kindergarten and Head Start programs aren't open to everyone, and school officials said she is just one of hundreds of El Paso parents who have run into the problem this year.
Because pre-k programs are paid for by federal Title 1 funds, the law requires that the money be used only for students who come from poor families or who do not speak English, EPISD spokesman Luis Villalobos said. For example, a family of four can't make more than about $33,480 and still qualify for public pre-kindergarten programs.
About 6,000 students enroll in public pre-kindergarten programs across El Paso and Hudspeth counties each year.
But school districts don't have the money to pay for universal pre-k programs, Villalobos said.
"There's a certain dissatisfaction because it excludes students," Villalobos said. "The public needs to understand those funds are designated for those students who are at-risk."
School officials told the Saenz-Hernandez family to look into the state's Head Start program, which doesn't have a language requirement.
But Saenz-Hernandez learned that she and her husband Ernesto Saenz-Hernandez, a Marine Corps staff sergeant based at Fort Bliss, make too much money to qualify for Head Start.
"My next alternative was to pay for preschool," Sylvia Saenz-Hernandez said. "Unfortunately, I didn't have that dispensable income."
The rejections and financial obstacles made pro-education phrases so popular with politicians -- such as "Leave no child behind" and "Every child will have an equal place at the starting line" -- ring hollow for parents like her.
Sylvia Saenz-Hernandez ultimately enrolled Ernesto in a preschool program at the child-development center at Fort Bliss. By volunteering at the center a couple of days a week, the family can get a lower tuition rate, she said.
Still, Saenz-Hernandez is upset at what she sees as discrimination against English-speaking children.
"I do understand there's a purpose" to educating non-English speakers. "I don't have tunnel vision," Saenz-Hernandez said. "But I just wish that we wouldn't tailor so many programs -- paid for by taxpayers -- only for people who don't speak English."
Celia Salazar, principal of the Ysleta Pre-K Center on Ranchland Drive, said she often deals with parents who become irate when they learn their children can't enroll because they speak English.
She said she wishes more money -- free of federal and state restrictions -- were available to make such programs available to everyone.
"Universal pre-k is needed," Salazar said. "All children at 4 years old need to be in a school setting. It doesn't matter what language they speak."
She said the Ysleta district teaches about 1,500 pre-kindergarten students a year. But when kindergarten starts, "there's 3,000 students. So we're only reaching about half of them."
Spots are still available in area school district pre-k programs, and the classrooms are filling fast, officials said.
But El Paso-area Head Start programs already have a waiting list, said Uriel Posada, Region 19 Head Start spokesman.
"This year we have a full enrollment. By law, we are supposed to have a 10 percent waiting list," Posada said. "That way, if someone drops out of the program, we have someone who can go into the program."
Between 3,400 to 3,700 students enroll in the Region 19 Head Start program each year.
Posada said he encourages all families to apply. Income is a factor in accepting children into Head Start, but not the only factor, he said.
"You'll never know if you qualify for Head Start if you don't apply. Every family is a special case, and we treat it that way," Posada said.
Salazar said she hopes the state's lawmakers and leaders will understand that stricter educational requirements for grade-school and high-school students mean that the investment must start with pre-kindergarten.
"Everything takes money. So hopefully, whoever's the next governor, hopefully, they'll take a look at this issue," Salazar said.
Oh, hey no problem.
The bottom line is that we can have endless debates, talk about the Irish, assimilation, La Raza, the Germans, we can run up and down memory lane for 200 years and back, but the bottom line is, THE FEDGOV HAS NO INTENTION OF STOPPING THIS INVASION OF AMERICA. LOL!
Very simple. We are no longer represented folks!........