Early challenges

I've spent hours in my classroom, and it is slowly coming together. Tomorrow, the third-grade team will finish its lesson plans for our first week of classes. On Thursday, we cover school policies and procedures, and I can finally complete my classroom discipline plan.

No real adventure, however, would be complete without a few early challenges. My school district is about 50% Hispanic students, 25% African American, and 25% Caucasian. However, our resources are almost entirely in English. I have several bilingual resources, but most of the programs we are encouraged to use are rendered useless by the language barrier. Part of the problem could simply be the lack of available quality bilingual materials. I have scoured every Half-Price Books store in town for Spanish literature. I resorted to splurging on a brand new copy of "Sarah, Sencilla Y Alta." Even internet sources yield very few Spanish equivalents to my favorite English children's books.

I am too new to the English vs. Spanish debate to have an opinion yet; however, I do think that if the nation is going to resist making English the official language, Spanish literature and bilingual resources for teachers should be more readily available.