The only Arabic language public school program in Orange County is getting cut from the Anaheim Union High School District curriculum due to what officials say is a lack of student enrollment.
And now the people who pushed to save the program last year are rolling up their sleeves again to stop it from getting discontinued at a time when community groups are reporting a surge in anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias in OC.
Earlier this year, the Arab American Civic Council warned people that the Arabic program at Western High School was in jeopardy once more and called on the community to submit letters to the district to save the class taught in an area with many Arab American families.
“Removing the Arabic language program will significantly impact these students’ ability to learn their language and will affect other students’ ability who want to learn Arabic,” reads an online petition.
“The recurring threat to the program highlights the ongoing struggle faced by the Arab American community in Anaheim to preserve their cultural identity and ensure that their voices are heard and their needs are met within the educational system.”
As of June 26, over 1,300 submitted letters to the district, according to the online petition.
District Superintendent Mike Matsuda said in a July 2 phone interview that while a lot of people from the community are writing to the district about the class, not enough people are enrolling in it.
“When you’re teaching an elective foreign world language there’s got to be a lot of internal marketing and the district did everything they can to support the teacher, and it’s just the numbers are not there to justify it,” he said.
Matsuda said there is a possibility to save the class if they can get enough people to enroll in it.
Community groups like the Arab American Civic Council and the Council on American Islamic Relations are working with district officials in an effort to keep the program alive.
Rashad Al-Dabbagh, executive director and founder of the civic council, said in a June 28 phone interview that enrollment in the class has been growing over the years and it’s the only one of its kind in all of Orange County.
He also adds that it’s needed now more than ever.
“There’s a lot of misconceptions and hate against Arabs and Palestinians and a misunderstanding of our culture and our people so it’s unfortunate to see a program like this go,” Al-Dabbagh said. “Times like these require that we do more education, more language programs.”
Aliya Yousufi, a senior policy coordinator with the Council on American Islamic Relations, said she met with district officials who plan to discontinue the Arabic 1 course next year and begin to phase out the whole Arabic program altogether.
“So basically, the students that are currently enrolled in Arabic courses will be allowed to complete this pathway,” she said in a June 27 phone interview.
Yousufi is optimistic that the program can still be saved for future students.
“Given that the reason is low enrollment, we do think that they left the door open that if we can rally the community to commit to signing up for Arabic, especially in this community with Little Arabia,” she said. “That we have the potential to reinstate the Arabic program.”
Yousufi said her organization plans to support outreach efforts in the community and local mosques as well as on social media to help to get more students to enroll in the program.
Low Enrollment Threatens Arabic Language Program
The decision to end the program comes on the heels of district officials back tracking on a plan to layoff over 100 teachers due to lost revenue caused by low student enrollment.
[Read: Anaheim Union High School District Scraps Dozens of Scheduled Teacher Layoffs]
Matsuda said cutting the class wasn’t an easy decision to make.
“It’s just not where we want to be but we’ve got to make something like $80 or $90 million in cuts,” he said.
Renae Bryant, director of plurilingual services at the district, said at the June 13 school board meeting that the class rolled out at a time when there was an influx of Arab immigrants in 2017-18, but enrollment numbers dropped after the pandemic.
“This district has come through some hard times of facing a reduction in force, and then having to come back and say that we will make sure we keep our teachers, but that also causes us to look at where we have the lowest amount of enrollments in our courses,” she said.
Bryant said there have been efforts to promote the course, but numbers haven’t increased to the needed amount and said if they offered Arabic 1 they’d have 50-75 students enrolled in the program when normal class loads for teachers are 190 students.
“It’s a hard decision that we have to make but it’s also we have to consider the entire ecosystem of the district and all the teachers,” she said.
At that same meeting, students in the class, both Arab and non-Arab, came to the board to advocate for the Arabic program and their teacher Lina Mousa.
Dena Altaben, a student, said she left the Garden Grove Unified School District to learn Arabic at Western High School and other students have also transferred for the class.
“Removing Arabic will lead to a huge change in Western’s numbers since a majority of the students in the Arabic program are only attending Western for the program,” she said at the June 13 school board meeting. “Don’t be the ones to fail the Arab community.”
Noelia Alvarado, one of Mousa’s other students, told the board that removing the Arabic class would alienate students from Arab backgrounds and create cultural misunderstandings.
“Learning Arabic has opened doors for me in understanding the traditions, history and customs of Arabic speaking societies. I have come to learn and respect the diversity of this culture, and believe this class helps in preparing students for diverse career opportunities,” she told the board of trustees.
This is not the first time students and community members have gone to bat for the class.
Saving OC’s Only Arabic Language Public School Program
Last April, Anaheim Union High School district officials announced they planned to cut the class due to low enrollment in the course and a lack of funding after the end of federal COVID bailout dollars.
[Read: An Arabic High School Program in OC is Getting Cut; Students Push to Save It]
But after push back from Mousa, her students, the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Arab American Civic Council, district officials decided to keep the program for at least one more year.
At the time, district officials said they’d partner up with Qatar Foundation International, a global organization based in Washington D.C. that aims to support Arabic language education through teacher training and grantmaking, to help fund the course.
[Read: Anaheim High School District Looks to Keep Arabic Program For Now]
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
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