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Language program may have to move

Rent costs are driving the school for immigrants and others out of Tarpon Springs.

By NORA KOCH
Published May 29, 2005

OLDSMAR - The Pinellas County School District plans to relocate a Tarpon Springs English language program 12 miles away to Oldsmar.

The news, prompted by rent costs, has been a disappointment to immigrants who have come to rely on the Tarpon Springs school.

But unless supporters can raise a year's rent - more than $12,000 - the program will leave Tarpon Springs this summer and move to new rent-free quarters in Oldsmar.

"Most people here don't have cars. They walk or take bus," said Anila Mucaj, 33, an Albanian immigrant lives in Tarpon Springs. Now Mucaj gets a ride to school in the morning from her husband and hitches a lift home from fellow student Mee Hee Chang.

"I couldn't go to Oldsmar," said Chang, a 40-year-old mother of two from Korea. "It's so far away. I'd spend money, time."

A group of supporters is trying to raise the more than $12,000 needed to keep the program in Tarpon Springs. The city has set up a dedicated account to collect donations for the effort, Saenger said.

"This is a part of the infrastructure we need for our community," said City Commissioner Robin Saenger. Most of the program's nearly 150 students come from Tarpon Springs, Palm Harbor and Holiday, said founding teacher Jean Cook. Students range from their 20s to their 80s, with the majority in their 30s. More women than men participate in the program.

Money to cover the rent has run out, leading school officials to settle on the old Oldsmar Elementary School.

The year-round program splits time between individualized computer study and classroom instruction, which is geared to benefit students of all different levels.

Cook expects the program to continue to work with students who need help with their English, but it wouldn't be the same students from the same community.

"We'd be serving different people," she said. "It's not that we won't have a population, (but) it wouldn't be the same service to the same area."

Currently, teachers are working with speakers of Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, French, Russian, Polish, Spanish, Greek, Farsi and Arabic, Brown said.

Students say the program works. Ligia Vera, a Venezuelan woman who takes two buses to get to the school each day from Dunedin, says she has seen an improvement in her English skills in the five months that she has attended the school.

"Most important is for me to come to school," said Vera, 35. "If you don't have English, it is very hard to get a job."

Beronica Reyes, 32, walks about 11/2 miles a day to get to the school. But if it were to move to Oldsmar, she likely wouldn't continue her studies.

"It's a long distance."

Times staff writer Richard Danielson contributed to this report. Nora Koch can be reached at 727 771-4304 or nkoch@sptimes.com

[Last modified May 28, 2005, 09:57:04]