CULVER CITY : School Board Proceeds With Plan to Relocate Immersion Programs

The Culver City school board has declined to reconsider its decision to move the district’s Japanese and Spanish immersion program into a vacant elementary school, over the protests of about 20 parents of Japanese immersion pupils.

The district had voted last month to move the immersion programs, in which 300 students are enrolled, to El Marino Elementary next fall, making it a foreign language magnet school. Concern about overcrowding at El Rincon, home to the Spanish immersion program, was also a reason for the decision.

Parents of students in the Japanese program, housed at Farragut Elementary, last week asked the board to reconsider the move, saying it will make driving their children to school more difficult. No busing is planned.

“We feel the parents were not taken into consideration,” said Coco Kida, whose kindergartner is enrolled in Farragut’s Japanese immersion program.

“When we put our kids in the program, we figured that if it wasn’t successful, our kids could still remain at Farragut,” said parent Dennis Tracy. Tracy said he will take his children out of the immersion program to keep them at the school.