Mr. Catelli, Supervisor of Social Studies and World Language departments, put together 3 surveys for parents of students and staff from Bernards High School and Bernards Middle School to broadcast information about the World Language program in our district. After the state of the Latin Program was called by the Board of Education to be examined, Mr. Catelli thought it would be best to collect data on the entire program.
“The main point was to gather data from the community and students about the current state of the world language program and what everyone wants to see as the future of the world program.” said Mr. Catelli.
The World Language department hopes to utilize the collected data to make future decisions for the department. Mr. Catelli said, “It helps us determine what courses we should keep offering, should we be expanding programs and should we be offering any new languages.” He went on to say that he hopes “we can use all this information to improve the programs in ways that everyone in the community would like.”
Overall the three surveys showed that there is a strong interest in the current languages we are offering, but the community would like to see the school district examine the possibility of offering another language language in the future. The languages with the highest interest that are not an active part of the language program were Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and American Sign Language.
Although there is no promise that these languages will be added to the world language curriculum there is certainly an interest within the community.
Mr. Catelli plans on writing a thorough summary on the topic and publishing it on the district website.
