ECASD faces accountability concerns after its now-reversed decision to discontinue Japanese language program
Photo by Wikimedia Commons.
By Hina Suzuki
The Eau Claire Area School District announced on Dec. 5 it will not discontinue its Japanese language program, as previously stated. The announcement followed after the public expressed disapproval over the decision of ending the program.
“I had no clue about this decision, and it came out of the blue,” said Hiroko Nagai, a Japanese language teacher who has taught in the district for 20 years. “Kids are very emotional and upset and disappointed.”
In mid-November, ECASD, the last school district in Wisconsin to offer Japanese language courses announced the decision to phase out its Japanese language program over the next two years. The district proposed to stop offering the first level Japanese next school year and discontinue the program altogether by the 2024-2025 school year while keeping their Western language –– Spanish, French and German –– and American Sign Language courses. The district also proposed to merge its Hmong language course with a Hmong History and Culture class in 2023.
The decision to discontinue the Japanese program was based on a district-wide review that found a drop in World Language courses enrollment for grades 7 to 12 over the past decade. Although the review found that Spanish, Chinese, French, Japanese and German are in-demand languages amongst U.S. employers, ECASD decided that they could no longer provide all six language courses due to low enrollment, staffing shortages and changes in student interests.
The public speaks out
The district’s former decision was met with disappraoval and criticism. Eighteen citizens spoke in protest during the public comment section of the school board meeting on Nov. 28.
“You may not realize this but when you published your decision in Eau Claire, it rapidly flew to Chicago, to the Consulate, then to the Embassy in Washington D.C. and the Ministry of Education in Tokyo,” said Andrew Seaborg, Honorary Consul of Japan who represents Japan and its interests in Wisconin. “I am here to offer you the resources of the Japanese government, including salary assistance and teacher recruitment when the time might be right.”
Seaborg represents the Japanese government and its interest in Wisconsin. He noted that more than 80 businesses in Wisconsin are Japanese-owned and Japanese companies including Fujifilm and Hitachi have invested billions of dollars in the state, making the company its largest foreign direct investor.
Nagai’s students also voiced their concerns infront of the board.
“Her classes were some of the best I took at Memorial high school and the language skills I learned from her helped to open up my future to me,” said a parent whose son took Nagai’s class.
“Please keep this program,” Clay Lawton, a current student of Nagai, added. “You don’t know how many people these would probably help and how many immigrants there are in the city that will feel represented from this program.”
Japanese language education in Wisconsin
According to Junko Mori, a Japanese linguistic professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Japanese program in Wisconsin’s secondary education system went through a significant change over the past 30 years.
In the late 1980s, when Japan had achieved one of the highest economic growth rates in the world, Wisconsin initiated an internship program to establish a Japanese language curriculum for grades K-12 students, Mori said. Japanese speaking interns were dispatched to public schools throughout Wisconsin, she explained, and by 2000, they had implemented Japanese language courses in more than 50 schools. Now only five schools in Wisconsin – all in ECASD – offer Japanese language courses.
Takako Nakakubo, a Japanese instructor at UW-Madison, said students with prior experience with the language are more comfortable with taking the university’s advanced Japanese courses.
“It’s unfortunate that there are only a few schools in Wisconsin with Japanese courses because it’s quite the advantage when students who want to join our program know even just a little Japanese,” Nakakubo said.
She also pointed out that learning a new language has more than academic benefits.
“The district choosing to discontinue its Japanese program not only means it is one less language students can choose from but it also means less opportunities for students to explore different cultures and open their eyes in many different ways,” she said.
As an intern who left Japan to teach in Wisconsin in 1989, Mori recently began a research project about the rise and fall of Japanese language education in the state over the past 30 years. As a part of the project, she said she is investigating the reason behind ECASD’s former decision of keeping its three Western language courses and discontinuing two Asian language courses.
“Keeping the Asian languages at the high school level and having some exposure to different world regions is very important,” Mori said.
Nagai, who also came to Wisconsin as an intern, said ECASD’s decision was “not right.”
“This is not right because it is called the world language program,” she said. “We should have as many languages as we can but now courses are all European languages.”
The community’s reaction to ECASD’s reversal on its decision
At ECASD’s board meeting on Dec. 5, a week after a public display of disapproval over the decision, Superintendent Michael Johnson announced the district will continue its Japanese and Hmong courses.
“The administrative team will seek alternative solutions to the challenges identified such as staffing, low enrollment or sustainability of world language classes, ” Johnson said.
Three community members returned to the school board meeting to express their gratitude for the reversal but also to demand the board accountability and growth.
“It was a decision made without transparency and sensitivity to the community impacted,” Ka Vue, program director for the Black and Brown Womyn Power Coalition, said. “We will all continue to hold you accountable through and through and hope that you all continue to listen and make the decisions that allow our community to thrive.”
Several area advocacy groups, including the Eau Claire Area Hmong Mututal Assistance Association and the Social X Change Project, demanded ECASD to launch an investigation into the process behind its initial decision. In a letter, the groups said for trust to be rebuilt between the district and Eau Claire’s BIPOC community, reparation is needed.
The topic would be visited at a later meeting date, according to Board President Tim Nordin.