BELCHERTOWN — The future of a 20-year-old Spanish program at Jabish Brook Middle School remains uncertain after school officials announced plans to eliminate the course next year, prompting parents, teachers and graduates to urge the School Committee to preserve it.

Superintendent Brian Cameron previously announced the loss of Spanish at the middle school during an April 14 budget hearing. He cited trouble finding a full-time Spanish educator and declining quality in instruction. The current middle school Spanish teacher, Lillian Gordon, would remain on staff teaching other courses, he said.

That announcement prompted parents and the district’s world language educators to ask Cameron and the School Committee to reconsider eliminating program at Tuesday night’s meeting.

Speakers stressed the cultural proficiency that accompanies world language, the value of bilingual skills in today’s society and the hindered path toward the State Seal of Biliteracy should the program be eliminated at the middle school level. The Seal of Biliteracy is awarded to high school graduates who demonstrate a high level of proficiency in English and at least one other language.

“Thanks to the foundation I built there, I earned the Seal [of Biliteracy], which translated to 15 college credits at UMass,” said Andrew Daponde, a 2024 Belchertown High School graduate. “I didn’t just save thousands of dollars, I also fast-tracked my career while learning a lot about the world and cultures.”

Ultimately, the committee voted for Cameron to meet with high school world language teachers and Jabish Brook Principal Thomas Ruscio to explore ways to keep the program.

“If we stick people in a room who can answer questions and live it and work it everyday, maybe some good comes of it or maybe the department says we understand, we cannot do it,” School Committee member Jake Hulsberg said.

The closure of Cold Spring School next year required the school district to redistribute grades and staff among the remaining buildings, Ruscio said. With little room left in Swift River Elementary School for specials, specialists who once moved between the two elementary schools will now split their day between Chestnut Hill Community School and Jabish Brook.

The middle school switched its schedule to a trimester system with a locked, six-period day to accommodate the change, but the district also had to shrink its specials offerings. This put both chorus and Spanish at odds with the schedule.

After the School Committee found a time for chorus to occur after school, Christine Holesovsky, World Languages department chair at BHS, asked for a similar solution for Spanish.

“While we understand that there are scheduling realities and difficulties, cutting a long-standing program, a program that has existed for over 20 years that leads to significant real-world benefits, due to scheduling seems very short-sighted,” she said.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education suggests six years of language courses to achieve a proficiency level advanced enough to pass the qualifying test. Since 2019, Holesovsky said 109 students were awarded the seal with only five years of language education.

“To knock us down to a four-year program when the state’s bar is a six-year program, is going to make that much less likely,” Holesovsky said.

The importance of world language extends beyond a college resume. BHS teacher Annette Colon-Vega stressed the way world language can break down barriers and foster greater understanding between people. She gave examples of the discrimination her Puerto Rican family experienced in Belchertown, as well as a 2023 incident of antisemitism at Jabish Brook and more recent racist threats to Gil’s Auto Repair & Performance Inc. earlier this year.

“These experiences are difficult, but they also show why multicultural education is essential,” Colon-Vega said. “Ignorance and stereotypes are not solved by avoiding differences. They are solved through education, exposure and conversations.”

That said, the School Committee said it has heard complaints for two years from parents and caregivers about the poor Spanish instruction at the middle school. Cameron noted that the course had been “basically a babysitting service” over the past two years, and many students repeated the year of Spanish in high school.

“I had parents crying to me about how awful our education was in Jabish,” School Committee Chair Heidi Gutenkest said. “I hated that I was on the School Committee for somebody that was getting such an awful education.”

Faced with scheduling challenges, Cameron opted not to vouch for the course after hearing repeatedly about its decline.

However, the Committee still wanted to save the program. They asked Cameron to work with Ruscio and the World Language Department to discuss an option that would maintain full-time status for staff and work within the current scheduling restrictions.

“Part of this is out of necessity, not preference” Ruscio said. “In those 20 some odd years, we’ve had multiple conversations regarding the languages, and now we are looking at a result that is very different from those conversations than really ever before.”