Immersion Students Starting College Courses

These 10th graders are not college ready, they are already in college! They are all enrolled at the University of Utah in an upper division 3000 level Spanish course — they are part of a pioneer group of Spanish immersion students from Granite School District who passed the AP as 9^th graders, and are now in their first year of the Bridge Program! This is coming to Chinese in the next two years! What is the Bridge Program? From this white paper:

“The Bridge Program is a unique partnership between all Utah state institutions of higher education and school districts with DLI programs. Each Bridge course is developed by a statewide team of university and high school instructors and delivered during a full academic year by a pair of instructors, one from the university hosting the course and one from the high school site working in a co-teaching model. Through challenging and sophisticated approaches to cultural content, Bridge courses focus on developing critical thinking skills and advancing students’ language proficiency towards state grade level targets. The courses further the state goal of graduating students from high school with language proficiency levels more typical of students completing a language major in college. Utah’s institutions of higher education are actively preparing for this influx of linguistically advanced students.

“The Bridge Program meets the need for a secondary pathway for DLI students, but its impact goes beyond this. Enrollment in Bridge courses is open to any student who passes the requisite AP Language and Culture exam, thus broadening its reach to heritage speakers and other students who pass the exam at any point prior to their final year of high school. The Bridge Program promotes equity and access to bilingual and bicultural citizenship in Utah by offering rigorous, upper division university language and culture courses to any qualified student in designated high schools as determined by each district.”

3000 level courses in 10th grade? Wow, that is incredible!