Chicago Tribune: ‘That really breaks my heart’: Lincoln Park High School to sunset Arabic classes, prompting outcry from community

By Kate Perez | Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO TRIBUNE - For four years, Julian Sadah, 18, sat in a classroom at Lincoln Park High School learning Arabic. What began as learning shapes and colors turned into a deep love for and fascination with the language, something Sadah, who graduated last week, said was formative in his high school years.

Now, Sadah and his classmates are among the last to take Arabic at LPHS, which has offered the class for years. The language program will no longer be offered to incoming students, a decision that Lincoln Park High School leadership said is tied to budget constraints and consistently low enrollment. The move has prompted backlash from some in the school community who say the program creates opportunity and inclusion.

“That really breaks my heart because it’s such a beautiful language once people actually try and learn it, just all the culture that is within it and the history too,” Sadah said.

School budgets are tight across Chicago Public Schools as the district looks to close a $732.5 million deficit, already cutting its teaching staff and some assistant principals. Lincoln Park High School hasn’t escaped the financial squeeze, which principal Eric Steinmiller attributed in part to the program’s end at a May 21 local school council meeting.

In addition to budget constraints, a total of 20 students were enrolled in what is Lincoln Park High School’s “lowest-performing” International Baccalaureate language program in scores, Steinmiller said.

Keeping Arabic as a language option without increasing the program’s enrollment means more students opt for other language classes, like Spanish and Mandarin, placing more pressure on those educators, Steinmiller said at the meeting. Facing fewer teachers and less funding, there is “no room for error” in the school’s spending, he added.

Steinmiller’s comments were gathered from a public recording of the meeting reviewed by the Tribune. He did not return the Tribune’s requests for comment.

While the school has tried to increase enrollment in the program, it has to move forward at some point, Steinmiller said at the meeting. “It’s going to be fiscally irresponsible of me to even offer it next year,” he said.

In an email to the Tribune, CPS said 16 LPHS students are currently enrolled in the program and will take a fourth year of Arabic. The district reaffirmed Steinmiller’s position in its statement, saying that with a “significant decline in student interest,” the school can no longer justify the costs of Arabic language programming.

The program’s sunset has generated an outcry from some community members, including a group that started a petition advocating for the program, who say the language is essential for fostering multicultural understanding and awareness, leadership development and enriching experiences.

“Eliminating access to Arabic for incoming students would limit educational opportunities and reduce the diversity of language offerings available at LPHS,” the petition, which received over 1,400 signatures as of Friday, states. “Language programs are essential not only for academic growth, but also for fostering empathy, inclusion, and cross-cultural understanding within our school community.”

Jordan Esparza-Kelley, communications coordinator at civil rights organization CAIR-Chicago, similarly told the Tribune that he views learning Arabic on par with Spanish as a way to gain world-building skills. The loss of the program is confusing and sad, he said, even if it is tied to budget limitations.

“No one would propose the removal of trigonometry at a school, right? However, only a subset of students will go on in their life and do that specific variant of math,” Esparza-Kelley said. “The other side of that is every student there speaks. Language programs in general, I think, are more fruitful than some of the other programs that would never have a floating question mark over their heads.”

These thoughts were echoed during the LSC meeting by some teachers, parents and students, including recent LPHS graduate Alexandra Matalka, who said the program helped Arab-identifying students connect with their heritage, while helping other students to see Arabic culture reflected positively. Matalka, who transferred to LPHS her junior year and took Arabic, told the Tribune this week that the program built her confidence, along with that of her Arabic-language classmates, who she said come from different races, ethnicities, religions and backgrounds.

“I’ve never felt so accepted, felt recognized, in a class or in a school. … I never once felt like I had a connection to people and my culture as much I did in that class,” Matalka said.

The program’s faults stem from it being underpromoted as a language for students, she said, adding that some of her peers did not know the school had an Arabic program.

Steinmiller said during the meeting that the school had previously tried to combat this by seeking external financial support to promote the program and ensure its longevity. In 2022, the Qatar Foundation International awarded a one-time $100,000 grant spread over three years to support Arabic language classes at the school. The foundation, which gives out grants supporting the teaching of Arabic, has helped fund parts of Arabic programming at other CPS schools in the past, including Lindblom Math and Science Academy’s long-standing curriculum.

In recent years, the foundation has been questioned for its role in funding parts of U.S. education, including by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and the Workforce in May 2024.

But Qatar Foundation International’s funding was insufficient for sustaining the Arabic program in the long term, according to Amy Zemnick, a member of Lincoln Park High School’s LSC. The council discussed the Arabic program’s sustainability for at least six years, she said, and while the grant helped the program stay afloat temporarily, it is now not “equitable” to continue offering it, Zemnick told the Tribune.

“I’m not saying there’s not value in the program, and if there was money, absolutely, we would love to keep it, but there’s a lot of different factors here that play into why it’s not sustainable,” Zemnick said. “The main one being we just don’t have the money or the kids.”

Arabic isn’t the only area of study facing cuts at the school, Zemnick added. An upper-level International Baccalaureate physics class will also not be taught this year due to low enrollment numbers and financial constraints, she said.

The sunset of Lincoln Park High School’s Arabic program comes as some other Chicago-area school districts face similar obstacles. In parts of the southwest suburbs, parents have pushed for their schools to add Arabic to their curricula for years, arguing that the chance to learn the language would open up academic and cultural opportunities. The process of incorporating the language has appeared to have stalled despite community support, the Tribune reported.

Still, some students who have studied the language, like recent graduate Sadah, placed similar importance on the sense of pride created and the strong bond created in the Arabic classroom.

“Ultimately, the same people that I had for freshman Arabic were the same people that I graduated with,” Sadah said. “That really does something with the relationship that we build as friends, as classmates … building a relationship deeper than class, beyond the classroom.”