Gutiérrez shares personal bilingual experience and asks about expansion

I'm really encouraged by the 3K dual language programs that you just shared.

I think as a parent.

who does speak more than one language at home, it is incredibly attractive to me to ensure that my child is exposed, right?

And I think the transition, I'll just give you the example of my older daughter, where we spoke Spanish at home.

She enrolled in a New York, an NYCPS 3K program, and it was wonderful for vocabulary, but no bueno for Espanol.

It really felt like she lost a lot of that.

And so then we intentionally kept her there so that we could enroll her in pre-K.

And it just felt, it felt like that was not happening across the district and District 32, for example, but really in all of my, in my council district.

So I'm really interested in wanting to ensure that, yes, we expand, getting all the things we need.

I think the concern is obviously the pipeline for all things early childhood education, but obviously, especially if we're talking about immersion programs and dual language, there's a shortage.

And I think it's really important for us to really spread the word that this is, this is a direction the city is moving in.

I don't, I don't know any parent who's enrolled there can do a language and regretted it, to be honest.

And so I think there's so much value there.

And I hope that, I hope that we can do it.

And I hope that we can really like talk about investment to be able to expand.

Are there...

Kind of how are you all looking at expansion for dual language programs?

I know that you share kind of like the specific rubric, but just equity wise, are there school districts in New York City right now that don't have a single dual language program?

And kind of like if there is, how do you how do you plan to expand?

And yeah, how are you all looking to...

Continue to expand it.

What do you need?