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For the first time, the city’s main charter school advocacy organization is making a push for parents of Spanish-speaking students to apply to charter schools.

The New York City Charter Center is starting an ad campaign in buses and bus shelters in the South Bronx and East Harlem in hopes of reaching Spanish-speaking families who are unfamiliar with charter schools. The ads, which are in Spanish, say that charter schools — “escuelas charters” — are free, public schools that offer their students individualized attention. They include a number for a Spanish-language hotline parents can call to get applications or ask questions.

The ads will run in 300 city buses and on 10 bus shelters.

Last May, when New York State’s legislature more than doubled the number of charter schools that can open, it also approved a teachers union-backed proposal to could force some charters to enroll more non-English speaking and special education students.

The law set a vague requirement that charter schools serve similar percentages of non-English speaking and special education students as the other public schools in their district. Currently, city charter schools enroll smaller percentages of these students than do traditional public schools. (more…)

A Spanish-language Keep it Going NYC subway ad. GothamSchools

Spanish has been making more and more appearances at the highest levels of city government as Mayor Bloomberg hits the campaign trail, so I wasn’t surprised last night when I boarded a subway car and saw one of the by-now-familiar Keep it Going NYC ads boasting about the city’s escuelas.

When translated, the ad, which is pictured above, reads, “Because we think that the opinion of each person counts, the New York City Department of Education asked all parents, students, and teachers what they think about their schools — 800,000 of them responded.” (Our resident Spanish expert offers one correction: The first words after Ciudad de Nueva York should be les preguntó, she notes, lest native speakers think the ad copy is in the first-person.)

The ad is part of an ongoing campaign by the Fund for Public Schools, the nonprofit fundraising organization associated with the Department of Education, to promote developments in the city schools since Bloomberg became mayor. The organization purchased subway ads for the first time last fall, and the colorful ads are also at bus stops and on taxi marquees. Below the jump is a (bad) picture I took of the ad atop the taxi that brought Elizabeth and me home from the airport on Friday night. (more…)

Spanish Native Language Arts Class at High School for Arts and Business from Diana Scalera on Vimeo.

Here’s a rare peek into an actual classroom at the High School for Arts and Business, where Spanish-speaking students are learning about the literature and culture of their native language by analyzing the lyrics of the song “Guantanamera,” which were adapted from a poem by Cuban hero Jose Marti.

The video was created by Integrated Curriculum and Instruction, one of the city’s School Support Organizations that provides professional development for teachers and other services for their network of schools.