LETTER: We need intense English instruction for Clark County students who don’t speak English

As I read constantly about the challenges facing Nevada’s public school system and our low ranking when it comes to learning proficiency, I see that one of the common issues many of our kids have is trouble communicating because they are not proficient in English. This must be incredibly frustrating and disruptive for both the students and teachers, while dragging down the progress of English-proficient students.

I know this is not going to be a popular with the PC police, but what if we set up an intense English learning class for each grade level? Non-English speakers go only to these classes until they are proficient in English. They will most likely be held back a year or a little behind compared to other kids their age, but at least from that point forward they would be able to integrate into the system and absorb the information they need without being a distraction to the rest. Then teachers would be able to complete their curriculum to progress all of the children in their classrooms.