For the past several years, high school-level world language courses have been offered to middle school students beginning in sixth grade. However, District 303 recently made certain changes to middle school course offerings in order to align with Illinois school code and Board Policy 6:315. Going into effect in the 2025-2026 school year and impacting the class of 2031 and beyond, sixth graders will no longer be able to take world language courses for high school credit. Furthermore, all high school-level classes taken in middle school must be reflected on high school transcripts.
Before these changes were put in place, students were given the option to take Spanish, French or German “A” in sixth grade and “B” in seventh grade, which was the equivalent of a single year of world language at the high school level. However, the Illinois school code and Board Policy do not permit sixth grade students to receive credit for high school courses. In order to fix this current misalignment, middle schools will no longer be allowing sixth graders to take Spanish, French or German “A,” but they will be offering a quarter-long exploratory course instead.
“Now, every sixth grader will be able to explore language and culture through a quarter-long class that will be offered in the sixth grade wheel in which they can explore language and cultures related to Spanish, French and German,” said Dhara Winters, Spanish teacher at Wredling Middle School. “We put that in the wheel to really adhere to the idea that middle school kids should be exploring lots of different classes and things before they figure out what it is that they really want to do.”
The following year, seventh grade students will be given the option to take a second World Language exploratory class. As seventh and eighth graders are eligible to receive high school credit, a Level One world language course will also be offered.
“When next year’s sixth graders are seventh graders, they can take World Language Explore Two. It is a semester-long, non-credited class which they can take in Spanish or French,” said Winters. “Additionally, they will have the option as a seventh grader to take language Level One if they were so enthralled or interested from their Explore class in sixth grade.”
Eighth grade students will then be given the option to take either a Level One or Level Two high school world language course, depending on the classes they took in prior years.
These changes are controversial due to the benefits of starting a language in sixth grade.
“I’m pretty glad that I took Spanish in sixth grade because it allowed me to get further into Spanish than if I started it in, say, seventh grade,” said Amber Zeilenga, freshman. “Just having that extra year of practice in Spanish has helped out a lot with my Spanish abilities and being able to learn the language better.”
Another difference that contributes to the change in world language course offerings is that all high school-level courses taken in middle school now must be reflected on high school transcripts.
“We weren’t requiring high school classes to be reported on the transcript,” said Winters. “But again, we weren’t in alignment with Illinois school code, which says in there specifically [that] any high school class taken at the middle school will reflect on their transcript and will impact their GPA.”
Furthermore, Illinois is changing their high school graduation requirements to include two years of a foreign language, whereas before, world language was not mandatory. This change will go into effect in the 2028-2029 school year.
“Starting the school year 28-29, the high school requirement is going to be two years of language to graduate,” said Winters. “Some colleges require it, but if the high school doesn’t require it, then we’re putting some kids kind of at a disadvantage”
Ultimately, it is still unclear what the long-term effects of these changes will be.
“I’m not sure what that impact will look like. I guess it’s just too early to tell,” said Winters. “We haven’t really ironed out what the curriculum for that quarter or semester long class is going to be yet. … I guess there’s just a lot more that we don’t know yet.”
