the DeKalb FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018 • VOL.

23, NO 10 • FREE

Serving East Atlanta, Avondale Estates, Brookhaven, Chamblee, Clarkston, Decatur, Doraville, Dunwoody, Lithonia, Pine Lake, Stone Mountain, Stonecrest and Tucker • A PUBLICATION OF ACE III COMMUNICATIONS

Dual Language
Immersion
offers more
than just a new
language to
students
Yung-Hee Kim, DLI kindergarten teacher at Evansdale Elementary, gives a high five during a math lesson being taught
entirely in French March 29. Photos by Derek Smith.
BY DEREK SMITH
derek@dekalbchamp.com

W
alking into Pascale Datta’s first-
grade classroom at Evansdale El-
ementary is like being transported
to France. Every poster and decoration in
the classroom is in French and every word
spoken by Datta or her students is French.
Outsiders are warned before entering
not to speak any English while inside. But
the students aren’t being taught French.
They’re being taught math in French.
Classrooms similar to Datta’s are scat-
tered throughout the DeKalb County
School District (DCSD). The program is
known as Dual Language Immersion (DLI)
and five DCSD schools offer at least one
DLI program. Evansdale has French along
with Rockbridge Elementary. Ashford Park
Elementary offers German and the Barack

SEE LANGUAGE ON PAGE 11

A student in Pascale Datta’s second grade class works on a math worksheet that is written in French.

Visit www.championnewspaper.com for local, real DeKalb County news.

LOCAL
Patrick Wallace, world languages and global workforce initiatives program specialist for the Georgia Department of Education speaks during a ceremony honoring Jeunes Amis du
Français (Young Friends of French), an honor society for elementary DLI French students, at Evansdale Elementary March 29.
LANGUAGE Continued From Page 1
Obama Magnet School of Tech-
nology offers Spanish, while the
GLOBE Academy offers Mandarin
Chinese, French and Spanish.
But DLI isn’t just about learning
a second language. According to
GLOBE Academy Head of School
Christi Elliott-Earby, it’s about a
new way of learning in general.
While other DCSD schools of-
fer an all-English track, the GLOBE
Academy doesn’t. A student at
Globe Academy must be engaged
in one of its three DLI tracks.
“When we have parents come
here, we tell them ‘the only reason
you’re coming here is for dual-lan-
guage immersion. Don’t come here
for any other reason,’” Elliott-Earby
told The Champion.
But she also stresses to parents
that language-learning is just a
small part of the benefits of DLI.
“Yes, it’s great that you’re learn-
ing Spanish or French or Mandarin,
but it’s just the fact that your brain
is morphing and synapsis are firing
in a whole different way when you
are completely immersed in this
other language that is not your na-
tive tongue,” she said.
Beyond second-language skills,
students who learn through a DLI
program enjoy other benefits,
according to Patrick Wallace,
world languages and global work-
force initiatives program specialist
for the Georgia Department of
Education.
Wallace said DLI students
typically develop greater cognitive
flexibility, better attention, mem-
ory and problem-solving skills as
well as an enhanced understand-
ing of their native language. The
benefits even go beyond that
though, he said.
“The program was built to have
our students be globally compe-
tent, and not just in words,” DCSD
World Language Coordinator
Rhonda Wells told The Champion.
“Math, science, history, the arts, all
of those—to be able to learn them
DEKALB FREE PRESS • FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018 • Page 11
in the language and to be able to
enter into the marketplace and
truly understand other cultures.”
DCSD was the first district in the
state to offer DLI programs in 2013,
according to Wells. The first stu-
dents to enter the program as kin-
dergartners will be in fifth grade
in the fall of 2018, one year away
from middle school. Though DCSD
doesn’t have a DLI middle school
program in place yet, Wells said the
plan is there.
DLI students entering middle
school will take two classes in the
non-native language in middle
school before taking their ad-
vanced placement language exam
in ninth grade, then should be able
to take a third language for three
years in high school.
According to Wells, students
who have fluency in two languag-
es have the cognitive skills neces-
sary to learn the third language
faster, allowing them to gain better
proficiency than students who are
not biliterate.
The DCSD DLI program isn’t
just expanding to middle schools.
It’s also expanding to more el-
ementary schools. Next year,
Pleasantdale Elementary will begin
offering a two-way DLI Spanish
program, meaning 50 percent of
the students will be native Spanish
speakers, giving students greater
engagement in the language and
allowing native Spanish speakers a
chance to learn English faster.
The DLI program could grow if
more schools want to implement
it. According to Wells, DCSD ad-
ministration has been supportive
of the program, and the support
has only grown through the years.
“I have been so lucky with the
way the [district] has backed us,
the way the teachers have just
given their all, the support from
the parents,” Wells said. “It really is
just perfect.”
OPINION
Preparing for the later years
With an aging and ailing aunt
and uncle for whose wellbeing I am
responsible, the topic of senior living
has taken on a new interest for me.
I want my loved ones to be in an
environment where they are safe,
have their medical, mental, physical
and emotional needs taken care of,
and where they can enjoy retirement
without being concerned about
meal preparation, driving and the
upkeep of a private home.
My aunt and uncle have always
been active in their church and
community and until recently have
both been active volunteers at
a food pantry. They enjoy being
socially engaged and regularly play
cards with friends, go out for dinner
and attend church; they, as do I, want
this lifestyle to continue.
My uncle was the first to have
medical concerns a couple of years
ago that unfortunately negatively
impacted his reasoning and decision-
making abilities as well as his short-
term memory. He is an exceptionally
intelligent and well-spoken man who
recognizes and acknowledges his
John Hewitt
johnh@dekalbchamp.com
limitations and is not hesitant to ask
for assistance.
My aunt has now been diagnosed
with a disorder affecting the nervous
system that has left her unable to
walk or stand. She has recently been
moved to a rehabilitation facility for
physical therapy.
While my aunt is in the rehab
facility, my uncle asked that we begin
looking at housing options that will
be easier for them to manage than
home ownership. The ideal scenario
is one that will allow the two of them
to maintain their independence
while providing the oversight
needed to ensure their safety and
well-being as well.
In searching for options, I’ve
DEKALB FREE PRESS • FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018 • Page 5
learned the hard way that some
retirement living options are far
from being conducive to the well-
being of the residents and some
can be downright depressing and
detrimental.
Before we can commit to a lease
at any sort of care facility, we must
first sell their home and get rid of
an abundance of personal items
collected by the couple over the
decades they’ve been together.
This got me thinking about my
own future and all the things my wife
and I have collected over the years.
Like many Americans, we simply
have too much—far too much—
stuff.
Most likely, things that we collect
during the span of a financially
stable lifetime will include a whole
lot of items that may be meaningless
to others. Items such as miniature
bulldogs that I collected after
graduating from UGA, trinkets
collected on vacations and art that
was appealing at the time it was
purchased but not so much anymore
have to be liquidated, donated or
discarded—and someone will have
the unpleasant task of having to
manage all of this unless we plan
ahead and begin ridding our lives
and homes of all the unnecessary
items while we are still able to do so.
Those of us who are in the
middle-to-late years of life should
not only create a plan to address and
manage financial and health needs
but should also have a plan to rid our
homes and lives of items that will
have little use or value to those left in
charge of our affairs.
Managing a loved one’s needs is
not an easy task; it can be extremely
time consuming and emotionally
exhausting on its own. However,
when others are faced with sorting
through a lifetime of collections
and accumulations, it is even more
difficult to manage.
Do yourselves and your loved
ones a big favor while you are
able, start getting rid of all those
unnecessary items before it is
too late. Whoever is left behind
will greatly appreciate your
thoughtfulness.
OPINION
Get a piece of the rock
Part one of two
“...This chasm that has been as
naught to me, to that fair-haired
youth may a pitfall be; He too, must
cross in twilight dim; good friend,
I am building this bridge for him!”  creation of the carving on Mount
from the poem, The Bridge Builder
by Will Allen Dromgoole, first
published in 1900.
One of the largest granite
outcroppings in the world is also
Georgia’s most visited tourist
destination, hosting nearly 4
million guests among its nearing
4,000 acres of green space, golf
courses, museum exhibits, hotel/
conference center and family
amusements—Stone Mountain
Park.
That rock well predates man’s
presence on this planet, the result
of long-cooled volcanic activity.  It’s
smaller and lesser known sibling,
Arabia Mountain, sits nearby. The
veins of the granite mounds extend
all the way into downtown Atlanta,
along the Peachtree Ridge and as
far east as Conyers.
To Cherokee, Creek and other
area Native Americans who first
occupied  the region, the mountain
was a place of worship and holy
grounds, called Rock Mountain.  in an economy once built almost
Later, as U.S. settlers began to
encroach on Creek territory around
the mountain in 1813, President
James Monroe dispatched U.S.
troops, led by Andrew Jackson
to relocate the stubborn pioneers
then squatting on Indian land.
Settlers ignoring the warning
would typically have their farms or
homesteads burned to convince
them to relocate.
Ironically, when Jackson became
president in the 1830s, he would
again dispatch troops to the area
to displace the Cherokee and Creek
Indians in part of what became the
massive Trail of Tears relocation.
White settlers found the area
granite made great building
material, it was soon being
quarried and then used in homes,
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DEKALB FREE PRESS • FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018 • Page 6
the initial director of the project, slavery.
‘One Man’s John Gustov Borglum, became a As a son of the South, born
Opinion’ Klan member at the insistence of of Yankee carpet-baggers and a
the Venables, before fleeing the Birmingham girl, and living here
Bill Crane project and the state to move to the as a first generation Georgian, I
Black Hills of South Dakota to helm grew up during the Civil Rights
bill.csicrane@gmail.com
Movement, and have witnessed
Rushmore. southern accents, customs,
churches and businesses all Here we are almost a century traditions and much of our culture
over the area...and later to much later, and like it or loathe it, the becoming viewed as backward
larger markets much further world’s largest rock group, General and/or anachronistic, as I also lived
away. In 1866, just after the Civil Robert E. Lee, his right hand through school desegregation and
War, brothers William and Sam General Stonewall Jackson and a significant transformation of my
Venable would form the Southern Confederate President Jefferson hometown of Atlanta and my home
Granite company, purchasing Davis look perpetually east to county of DeKalb.
Stone Mountain and all land the rising sun. The carving and To be continued  -
around it as far away as Lithonia for other aspects of the Confederate
mining. memorial within the park comprise Bill Crane also serves as a political
Stone Mountain granite forms roughly 40 of almost 4,000 acres, analyst and commentator for Channel
the stairs of the East Wing of the the largest green-space in the 2’s Action News, WSB-AM News/Talk
U.S. Capitol, the vaults of the U.S. metropolitan Atlanta region, other 750 and now 95.5 FM, as well as a
Treasury and the gold reserves than Lake Sidney Lanier. As our columnist for The Champion, DeKalb
at Fort Knox and the locks of the nation wrestles with what are Free Press and Georgia Trend. Crane
original Panama Canal to name acceptable remembrances of that is a DeKalb native and business owner,
but a few prominent edifices. By dark era in our nation’s checkered living in Scottdale. You can reach
1893, brochures of the company past, the carving and all Confederate him or comment on a column at bill.
would claim the mountain to symbology have become inexorably csicrane@gmail.com.
be the world’s largest deposit of linked to the Klan and the issue of
merchantable granite.
The Venables were community
leaders and businessmen
during the challenging time of
Reconstruction, employing many
entirely around agriculture.
Spurred in part by the release
of the film The Birth of a Nation,
in Atlanta late fall of 1915, the
younger Venable helped organize
a rally to reform the Klu Klux Klan
atop Stone Mountain on Nov. 25,
1915. 
Though there were visible
and invisible connections to the
Democratic Party of that day, the
Klan of that era had plenty of
hate and disdain to go around,
not just for African-Americans
or freed slaves, but also the
Catholic Church, Jewish and
Irish immigrants and were major
proponents of  Prohibition. The
Klan also played a critical role later
in some of the financing of the
carving on Stone Mountain, and
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