It is the school application season. But Chinatown is worried about the fate of Seward Park High School, the largest high school in that area, and its bilingual program. The school is being replaced by two smaller ones, but Chinatown’s concern is that the bilingual program will be eliminated with the high school, as is the trend, which will leave Chinese new immigrants students to an obscure future.

Dividing a large school into smaller ones to improve efficiency is part of the city’s on-going educational reform. After dividing several other schools in Manhattan, the Manhattan High School Superintendent W. L. Sawyer put Seward Park High at the top of the list. Concerned about the bilingual program, 498 Chinese teachers, parents and community leaders signed a petition to keep the bilingual program. The petition was handed to the Schools Chancellor Joel Klein on March 18.. On March 30, an Education Department spokesperson told Sing Tao that the bilingual program would be maintained in one of the two smaller replacement schools.

But the Chinese community still feels the bilingual program on which they depend so heavily will be hurt.

Educational Department spokesperson Margie Feinberg confirmed that the department will phase out Seward Park beginning this September. First, they will stop enrolling ninth graders. Three years later, when current ninth graders graduate, the more than 80-year-old school will close permanently. Meanwhile, two smaller new schools will begin to enroll ninth graders this September. The new schools, Feinberg said, would be an art school and a common high school with a bilingual program. Feinberg didn’t disclose the locations of the new schools, nor where the teachers would come from. “The details are still being discussed,” she said.

To the bilingual teachers and Chinese parents of Seward Park, the assurance didn’t bring a relief. “I don’t think the new school would have enough capacity for the increasing number of new Chinese immigrant students,” said Jinni Xu, a science teacher in the bilingual program. “Also, where will the students who have to stay [back] in ninth grade go? We are all tenured teachers and we don’t worry about our jobs. But the victims will be the students.”

Established in 1975, the bilingual program at Seward Park is now one of the largest bilingual programs in the city. Because the school is located on the edge of Chinatown, its bilingual program plays a significant role in new Chinese immigrants’ education. Through this stepping stone, many students jumped into Ivy Leagues from their hometown middle schools. Famous alumni include Zeng Zhe, the 28-year-old Wall Street professional who gave his life saving others’ on September 11th.

Since the early 1990s, when new immigrants from Fujian Province, China began rushing into New York, the bilingual program in Seward Park High became even more important to the community. About half of the 1,500 students now at Seward Park study in the bilingual program. Among them, about 90 percent are new Chinese immigrants from Fujian.

“The program is indispensable for the community,” said Dr. Jerry Huang, a 30-year educational veteran and the founder of the bilingual program at Seward Park. “But the current environment does not favor bilingual education.” Dr. Huang said. Mayor Bloomberg said publicly that when his grandmother came to America, there was no bilingual education at all. And then the students did well. “But students at that time didn’t need to take SAT exams,” said Dr. Huang. “For new immigrants who have to pass the test three years later, a bilingual program is 100 percent necessary.”

Dr. Huang said the city did a survey of the bilingual education system and found that the academic scores of the students in bilingual program is below average. But that is not the case at Seward Park. “Among the top 50 graduates, 90 percent are from the bilingual program,” Dr. Huang said. Pointing out that Chancellor Klein missed the deadline to release the reform proposal of the city’s bilingual education system, Mr. Huang said: “Obviously, there are disagreements. The fate of bilingual education system is still unclear.”

There is one more uncertainty. The phasing out of Seward Park parallels a reform of the school district. Mr. Sawyer, the one who decided to divide Seward Park, will be replaced by a new regional superintendent, Shelley Harwayne. It is unclear whether the original reform plan will be continued under Ms. Harwayne. A signed petition was also submitted to Ms. Harwayne, who promised to visit the school soon.

This article was written as part of the Ethnic Press Fellowship of the Independent Press Association-New York.