Last modified: Thursday, May 31, 2007 2:10 PM PDT Payette Fire Chief Jeff Sands (left) and Nampa Police Department Bomb Squad Commander Mike Phillips examine the remains of a ‘suspicious package’ at Idaho Health and Welfare Tuesday. Employees called in the bomb threat just before 9 a.m. Tuesday morning and the area was evacuated and the threat contained around noon. The Payette Police Department is in charge of the investigation. Language program cut By Jennifer Colton - Argus Observer Ontario - This fall, incoming students at Aiken Elementary School in Ontario will no longer have the option to enter the dual language program. The school will begin phasing out the programs through several grades, beginning with kindergarten, first- and second-grade levels, Aiken Elementary School Principal Melissa Williams said Wednesday. The program will be phased out of the fourth grade next year, fifth grade in the 2008 to 2009 school year and sixth grade in the 2009 to 2010 school year. The move to phase out the program arrives in the wake of a 3-2 vote by the Ontario School Board to end the agenda at a special meeting Tuesday night. “The school board did review again the information and listened to the teachers that came and presented, and they did decide to phase out the dual language program,” Williams said. “I think they were very thorough in their investigations. We live in very different times now, and our context has changed. The times of high-stake accountability and AYP (Adequate Yearly Proficiency) are with us, and that’s a big concern for them (the board members).” The Ontario School District began using the dual language program at Aiken Elementary 10 years ago after receiving a grant for the project, Williams said, but in the last four or five years, the school has struggled with program enrollment numbers. Traditionally the school has offered two classrooms for each grade level, but skewed student numbers in recent years became a concern. “(At Aiken,) 30 percent of the total population is in dual language, and it is mostly the able learners,” Williams said, noting dual language classrooms average 12 to 20 students while the other classrooms average 20 to 28. “Those numbers are significant when you consider that the special education needs students are more often in those classrooms,” Williams said. Originally the program was designed on a 50/50 model — where students receive an equal amount of instruction in English and Spanish — but changing enrollment numbers and staff sparked a variety of reconfigurations over the years, Williams said. “We tried switching classes during the day, blended classrooms, but the board had to decide if these were good long-term decisions or short term,” she said. “It is very difficult to add kids to the program. It’s hard to enter a program when the other students have been receiving years of instruction and you’re expected to catch up. As people move out of the program, numbers are getting very small.” Competition in bilingual education with the Four Rivers Community School makes a difference in enrollment numbers, she said, but a key piece of information also revolves around test scores. In the 2004 to 2005 school year, Aiken Elementary School did not meet the federal AYP guidelines — the first time an Ontario elementary school had failed, Williams said. Those test results then prompted a cumulative, in-depth evaluation of data from the past 10 years that Williams presented at the April Ontario School District Board of Directors meeting. The assessment revealed the students in the dual language program scored lower than their counterparts across the AYP board. After having a chance to review the data, officials from Aiken approached the board Tuesday to learn the fate of the program. “At the end of the day, you’ve got to get your test scores up,” Ontario School District Boardmember Cliff Bentz said. “Kids need to get as far as they can in basic skills. The one thing that is there all the way through is that the kids not in this program are doing better than the kids in the program at developing those basic math and language skills.” Williams sent a letter announcing the program’s future to all parents Tuesday, and she said she will continue to explain the decision to families. “I’ve spoken with some parents personally, but I think I will have to meet with more families to explain in more detail,” she said. “The families I’ve spoken to have been very supportive once they found out all the information.” Williams said she does not know if the dual language program could return in the future. “I think the success of the charter school (Four Rivers Community School) will be something we will be watching very closely — their interest and how that will continue over time,” she said. “I think we’ve made a lot of positive changes in the last few years, at Aiken and at the Ontario School District. We’re very interested and committed to do a good job for the kids.”