The Bilingual Education Toolkit Project is a partnership and collaboration between West Las Vegas School District (WLVS) and the New Mexico Highlands University School of Education (SOE). This collaboration will see the WLVS’s goal of becoming a model bilingual multicultural Pre-K through 12th Grade school district with the support of the SOE. A bilingual multicultural school in this sense is one that acknowledges the rich culture, history and linguistics of the Spanish language of Northern New Mexico. The objectives of the project center around the following:
- The use of historical, cultural and linguistic backgrounds of the students, families and communities of Las Vegas within curriculum.
- The teaching of Spanish using the heritage bilingual education model to support and revitalize the student’s heritage language, Spanish.
- The integration of learning opportunities outside of the classroom with the support of Spanish speaking community members.
The key learnings gained through this partnership will be utilized to create a Bilingual Education Toolkit that can be used by other schools and school districts who seek to become a bilingual district after this model.