MANCHESTER — School district officials are planning to overhaul programs for high school students who are not proficient in English, with the goal of educating them at area schools, instead of sending all of them to a magnet program at Central High.

The plans were outlined at a meeting of the Curriculum and Instruction Committee on Monday, while faculty in the current English Language Learner program at Central forcefully defended their work.

The Central High faculty were responding to concerns raised by the Granite State Organizing Project, a community-activist group, which has pointed to the experiences of some current and former students who say that the Central program limited their opportunities and amounted to segregation. Some of those students expressed these concerns in a recent article in the Union Leader.

Administrators said the changes to the ELL program were meant to bring it in line with state and federal guidelines and to address shortcomings they had identified in the program.

“Students are not receiving the English language instruction they should. Several students are not able to get the services they need,” said Jennifer Marino, the district's coordinator of the ELL program.

Under the proposed changes, which the administration would seek to implement at the start of the next school year, there would be ELL programs at each of the three high schools that would provide classes solely for non-English proficient students. Teaching positions now at the Central magnet program would be relocated to the other schools, including the Manchester School of Technology.

A new district-wide curriculum would also be implemented and efforts would be made to improve communication with students' families.

One of the central problems the state Department of Education identified is that up to 50 students in need of English instruction at Memorial High weren't receiving any.

“That's the overall intent of moving the staffing,” said Assistant Superintendent Michael Tursi.

The administrators said they would seek input from teachers, students and families over the course of the coming school year on the changes.

The new policy, however, drew immediate criticism from committee member Arthur Beaudry.

“There is nothing to substantiate these policies,” he said. “To have programs at all three schools, I'm concerned about costs and about whether we are just duplicating services.”

Faculty of the Central High ELL program also defended the current system, including its director June Tumblin. Their primary concern were the allegations made by students associated Granite State Organizing Project.

“These accusations of discrimination and segregation, these are inaccurate and frankly ludicrous hours,” said teacher Connie Swenson.

“In any organization, there are going to be complaints from some people about how they were treated .. I'd say 91 percent of ELL students are grateful for the education they received.”

Sarah Jane Knoy, the executive director of the organizing project, countered that she was “baffled” by the reaction from the faculty of Central High's ELL program.

“Suggestions about modernizing the program they're taking as personal insults,” Knoy said. “What we're talking about are data-based solutions.”

Charter school busing

In other action on Tuesday, the school committee voted to rescind a vote in June eliminating $82,000 earmarked for charter school busing.

State education officials said state law requires school districts to cover the cost of busing students to charter schools. In response, school administrators said they were calculating how much the busing would cost. Manchester has two new charter schools opening this fall, and administrators have said that they would likely have to bring two more buses into service.

tsiefer@unionleader.com