News Photo by Crystal Nelson Alpena High School French teacher Heather Stutzman is pictured in her classroom last week.

ALPENA — Fewer Northeast Michigan students are taking upper-level foreign language classes, school leaders said.

More than 490 high school students in Northeast Michigan are currently enrolled in a foreign language program, but fewer are taking the more advanced classes because more choices for other classes are available, officials said.

The early classes are introductory, while, “at those higher levels, it’s reading and speaking that they’re really working towards,” Alpena High School Assistant Principal Romeo Bourdage said.

It’s not unique to Northeast Michigan. A 2016 census of colleges and universities by the Modern Language Institute of America showed overall enrollments in foreign language decreased by 9.2% from 2013.

Yet many still see the need to learn foreign languages.

Alpena Public Schools Trustee Mike Barnett, a former political science teacher at Alpena High School, recently told his board he would like to see the district’s program become more robust.

Barnett said many students end up traveling all over the world now, and “you need to know some foreign languages — at least one,” he said. “You never know with some of these big employment opportunities where they are going to send you.”

REQUIREMENTS, OPTIONS

APS continues to offer students several options to learn foriegn languages.

Bourdage said students can learn French, German, or Spanish, and first- or second-year classes are typically full.

But fewer students are taking a third or fourth year.

“We’re running the same programs — the three solid foreign languages — but we’re running fewer sections, because fewer students are signing up for it,” he said.

Bourdage said that’s largely because fewer students are enrolled in the high school than in years past and because students have more choices of classes available to them.

He said the high school once enrolled 2,200 students, but state data shows there are now fewer than 1,200.

The Michigan Department of Education requires students to take two years of foreign language to graduate, but students can opt out of the second year if they take a Career and Technical Education course or a visual, performing, or applied arts course, such as art or theater.

Bourdage said the high school has also recently added more dual enrollment and Early College classes.

Because of the many graduation requirements and because of elective classes students want to take, Bourdage said, students often start learning a foreign language at Thunder Bay Junior High School.

OTHER DISTRICTS

Other school districts in Northeast Michigan do not have as many foreign language choices, but are still able to meet the state’s graduation requirements.

Some schools still have in-district teachers to teach foreign language, while other schools offer such classes online or through dual enrollment opportunities.

Atlanta Community Schools has a German teacher and Rogers City Area Schools has both a Spanish teacher and an online option to learn Spanish.

Alcona Community Schools usually offers an in-person foreign language course, but Superintendent Dan O’Connor said the course is offered virtually this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. He said students also can choose from 12 other foreign language options taught online through a third-party vendor.

Posen Consolidated Schools began offering a French language class remotely to students in partnership with Alpena Community College, through which students also receive college credit.

Hillman Community Schools does not have a world language teacher, according to Superintendent Carl Seiter, but utilizes an online Spanish class through a third party.

“For the second year of Spanish, we try to enroll students in a dual enrollment course through ACC or Kirtland (Community College),” he said in an email to The News.

At Alpena High, Bourdage said students usually decide to continue a foreign language program for one of two reasons: either the student loves the program or they’re trying to get into a college that requires a student to have four years of a foreign language.

“The foreign language department feels it’s imperative to run those classes, even if there are only 15 kids signed up,” he said.

That means Bourdage and other high school counselors have to be more creative in scheduling upper-level foreign language classes. Bourdage said they try not to place students in a classroom alone, but try to schedule them in groups of two or more.

Crystal Nelson can be reached at 989-358-5687 or cnelson@thealpenanews.com.

COMING MONDAY

Check out Monday’s edition of The News for a look at Posen Consolidated Schools’ unique new French class.