January 19, 2007

Five VOA-Sponsored Schools Receive
Minnesota Department of Education Finance Awards

Congratulations to the five VOA-sponsored schools that received the Minnesota Department of Education Finance Award! The award goes to schools that meet certain financial and legal criteria that signify schools as good stewards of public dollars. The schools are: Birch Grove Community School, Harbor City International School, Kaleidoscope Elementary, Studio Academy, and Trek North. Forty-four traditional districts and 29 charter schools received the award.

October 4, 2006

Wortington Area Language Academy Awarded a
$300,000 Foreign Language Assistance Program Grant

The Worthington Area Language Acadamy (WALA) has been awarded a $300,000 Foreign Language Assistant Program (FLAP) grant by the United States Department of Education. WALA's application was one of only 75 applications out of 220 to be recommended for a new award this year.

The grant will provide WALA with $100,000 per year for the next three years to enhance the school's innovative dual-language immersion program and will be used for additional hours for teaching associates in the Spanish classrooms, training for teachers, and supplies and equipment for the Spanish classrooms.

At WALA fifty percent of a student's day is spent studying academic areas in English and the other fifty in Spanish. This model of Elementary dual-immersion has been shown to produce fluent and Bilingual English language speakers who perform on average 30% better then their Monolingual peers at the high-school level.

WALA also offers exposure to a third language, Lao, as well as vocal and instrumental music, art, and extracurricular activities such as Girls Volleyball. As a licensed PeaceBuilders site WALA promotes the peaceful resolution of conflicts emphasizing ideas such as "give-up put downs" and "seek wise people."