Springfield schools approve cuts ending middle, high Spanish immersion

Springfield Public Schools voted to end its full Spanish dual immersion pathway beyond elementary school, a move that will reshape one of the district’s signature programs for middle and high school students. The 3-2 board vote Tuesday night also approved a staffing package that will eliminate more than 30 jobs next school year as the district works to close a deep budget gap.

The changes leave the elementary program intact at Guy Lee Elementary School, but they effectively shut down the full immersion track at Hamlin Middle School and Springfield High School. District leaders said middle school students will still be able to take a Spanish cultural heritage class taught in Spanish, and high school students can still enroll in Spanish classes. For advanced students, the district said it would help pay tuition for more Spanish coursework at Lane Community College or the University of Oregon.

For many families, those options were not enough. The meeting drew a standing-room-only crowd, and about two dozen people testified, including parents, students and Latino community leaders who said Springfield had broken a promise and weakened a program that helped draw them to the district in the first place. One Springfield High School dual immersion student told the board the program helped him connect with Spanish-speaking family members and understand both sides of his identity.

The district has said the cuts were driven by declining enrollment and budget constraints. Springfield Public Schools said its 2026-27 operating budget is built around a projected $7.9 million deficit, while earlier reporting projected a $10.4 million shortfall and a drop of about 300 students next year. With just shy of 9,000 students overall and roughly one in four identified as Latino in Oregon Department of Education data cited by KLCC, the dual immersion program has carried outsized importance in a district where language access and family identity are closely tied to school choice.

The Budget Committee approved the operating budget on May 7. The district had already moved through a mid-year reduction in force in January that cut 27 full-time equivalent positions and left 4.5 unfilled positions behind, a total of $2.34 million in spending. Board member Amber Langworthy voted against both the January layoffs and the June budget package, and in June she said she still had unanswered questions about whether parents and staff had been adequately heard before the district moved ahead.

The vote preserves elementary dual immersion, but it ends a pathway many Springfield families chose from the start because they expected it to continue through graduation.