AMHERST — In response to concerns from families that the Caminantes dual-language program ends at sixth grade, the Amherst Regional School Committee is giving the go-ahead for administrators to launch a pilot, one-year advanced Spanish program at the middle school.

The committee, in a 7-2 vote Tuesday, agreed with a plan to add the course to the curriculum so that most of the 32 sixth graders at Fort River School, many of whom are completing their seventh year in the program, as well as some sixth graders from Leverett, Shutesbury and Pelham, could enroll in this language course.

Superintendent E. Xiomara Herman explained that since Caminantes is not yet being expanded into the region, and that the middle school serves four towns, three of which don’t have Caminantes, the pilot program will be a way to support two dozen students who are proficient in Spanish.

While Herman said she hears the passion of families whose children have been part of Caminantes and their advocacy for it to continuing into the secondary schools, she doesn’t want to rush a new program into place.

Celia Senckowski, the district’s multilingual education administrator, said the course will include advanced concepts, with language and grammar, and literature and poetry.

Such a course, Senckowski said, could be important for heritage students, including Hispanic and Latino students who regularly speak Spanish at home, improving their literacy and confidence, providng equitable outcomes and closing achievement gaps in various test scores.

Without the pilot program, the only solution for addressing these gaps would be in Spanish 1, a mostly introductory language class, and there the momentum for students’ proficiency and language growth will stall, she said. Senckowski said there is concern that students would be faced with a two-year gap in learning Spanish before getting to high school.

The pilot program would not only be for Caminantes students, but other Spanish speakers, and would require a placement exam to get into.

“We’re trying to design a way to make it equitable where there’s a number of seats, where there’s a lottery, where it doesn’t guarantee only the Caminantes kids are in the pilot,” Cenckowski said. This would mean it an entry point for any students in the region, including those accepted via school choice.

Tonya Mcintyre, executive director of Student Academic Success and director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment, said the pilot may allow data to build something bigger going forward. The idea is to make sure school leaders have this right before expanding it and making sure it doesn’t have a negative impact on the school.

McIntyre said the hope is to make this buildable and scalable for Spanish and other languages.

The success of Caminantes was shown a recent University of Massachusetts Bilingual Hub, which on May 9 hosted its 2026 Seal of Biliteracy Award Ceremony. The Caminantes students were among the youngest to take the stage there, with 32 receiving their Biliteracy Seals and five receiving their Bilteracy Seals of Distinction.

Amherst representatives Sarah Marshall said every new course has to be piloted and it is important for this language program to help heritage speakers.

Addressing achievement gaps among native speakers is also important to Leverett representative Tim Shores. “I think that we can make this work,” Shores said.

Pelham representative Sarahbess Kenney, who chairs the committee, said her concerns are about having a placement test and whether all students will have access to it.

Kenney said she understands there is a frustration from families who want Caminantes to continue in to the regional schools. “But I don’t know that almost June is the time to be fixing that problem. I think it needs more thought than that,” Kenney said.

While she supported the measure, Shutebsury representative Anna Heard said there is understandable outcry from Caminantes families that the program dead ends in Amherst’s elementary schools.

“In hindsight, everybody saw this coming, why didn’t we think about this two years ago,” Heard said, adding that it was “incomprehensible” no planning was done at that time.

McIntyre explained that there were unexplained interruptions in the planning, attributing this to the pandemic and other factors, such as the loss of the administrative leaders before Herman became superintendent in July 2024.

Those who voted not to start the pilot program were Amherst representatives Deb Leonard and Laura Jane Hunter.

Hunter said she understands the passion of families, but there is no evidence that students will lose their skills and she worries about distress from those who don’t get into the pilot. “I don’t think it fits now and I think everyone’s going to be unhappy,” Hunter said.

Several parents have written letters and a few spoke out about the issue.

“Not offering advanced Spanish courses at the middle and high school levels is no longer a viable option,” said Marialuisa Di Stefano, a parent of a Caminantes student.

Dave Follette, a parent of a sixth grade Caminantes student, urged students to do right by that advanced language class seems to be somewhat of a compromise and that like chose, that without Caminantes possibility that families would have chosen the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion School.

Margaret Sawyer, who teaches Spanish and parent of a sixtrh grader, writing, reading, speaking and listening and scholarships and free education is available.

Five of the kids passed 11th grade seal of biliteracy and that a promise that was made that Caminantes would continue was not made by it was made

Jennifer Curiale, a parent of a fifth-grade student, that sixth graders just becoming proficient and need more advanced language course to continue.

“To that end it would be a betrayal of these students and would be an affront to all their hard work to end their bilingual journey now,” Curiale said.