Medford High Foreign Language Teachers Petitioning for Equal Time

Medford High’s foreign language teachers have started a Change.org petition urging the superintendent to increase their department’s budget.

The teachers want foreign language classes to meet as often as the school’s other core subjects. Currently, over the course of a school year, Medford students receive six fewer weeks of foreign language instruction than their other core subjects, according to the teachers.

“Our teachers give their all; there is no doubt,” the petition reads. “But when it is clear that their ‘best’ can never be on par with what other classes get … it creates an atmosphere of frustration, anxiety and dejection for teachers, which isn’t good for anyone.”

In an email to Medford Patch, the teachers wrote that they surveyed more than 50 surrounding communities and all give foreign language equal time.

The petition is signed by the school’s tenured foreign language teachers: Saioa Diez, Elizabeth Gómez, Nélida Lepore, Felisabeth Pancheri and Michael Skorker. It had 452 signatures as of Monday night.

The petition also requests:

• An additional teacher
• Revised schedules so that teachers teach four classes each
• New textbooks (“We have asked for replacements of our textbooks from 1994, some of which have mold on them. We were refused,” the petition reads.)

The teachers are planning to present the petition to the School Committee at its budget hearing at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 19, in the high school library.

Petitioning Roy Benson: Medford School Administration: Fix the schedule so Foreign Language classes meet every day