The Language Transition Program, new this school year, provides intensive English instruction to students in sixth through eighth grades. To be eligible, students must have been in the United States for a year or less.

"I am learning a lot," said Jesus Barajas, 12, a sixth-grader enrolled in the program. "I like how the teachers teach, and I like the school."

The students, most of them Latinos, don't take just language classes. They learn English while studying other material, such as math and science.

"We're teaching English, but we're not stopping the educational process," said Elaine Green Levitt, one of three teachers involved in the program. "Why not teach them English while we teach them science?"

She and the other teachers, Don Segars and Elizabeth Silveira, said the middle school years are crucial for new students who need English instruction. It is often their last chance to prepare academically for high school.

Segars said an eighth-grade newcomer might be reading on a second or third grade level.

"Our job is to bridge the gap," he said, "and it takes about three years to bridge the gap, with most (educational) models."

At the same time, "we have some truly well-educated kids coming to us," Segars said. "Some of them already know basic English."

Both Gainesville City Schools and the Hall County School System have seen a rise in their Latino populations.

According to enrollment numbers from October, the latest official count, the city system has 2,076 Latinos, or 47 percent of its enrollment of 4,438. The county has 5,147 Latinos, or 24 percent of its enrollment of 21,730.

More than 60 percent of the Latino students in both school systems are fluent in English, but Latinos make up 92 percent of the city's English Speakers of Other Languages students and 97 percent of the county's ESOL students.

How to educate the area's rising number of non-English speakers became an issue during the recent redistricting of five North Hall elementary schools. The Hall County Board of Education was considering two proposals out of several, and the project was complicated by discussions on where to place Latino students in the northern part of Riverbend Elementary School's district.

"You've got to come up with a comprehensive plan for educating ... people who can't speak English," Hall resident Paul Stanley said during the board's Jan. 20 public hearing.

Board member Nath Morris said ESOL would have to be addressed no matter which proposal was approved.

"We've got to have it so language is a not a barrier for education," he said.

The county has addressed the issue by providing ESOL certification classes for teachers, increasing the number of bilingual parent liaisons at its schools and starting up the Newcomers Academy.

The academy, used at Myers, Tadmore, Jones and Lyman Hall elementary schools, provides 2´ hours of daily intensive English instruction to non-English speakers.

Like Gainesville's program, the students have been in the country for a year or less.

"We will continue to try to provide more services to students, to look at how to serve more and how to serve better," said Sandra Perry, Hall County's ESOL coordinator. "We're also looking at more training for mainstream teachers in how to use effective (educational) strategies for all learners."

She said one of the goals is to add more "sheltered" ESOL classes at the middle schools. In those classes, students can learn English and an academic subject at the same time.

Gainesville Middle had sheltered ESOL classes before it converted to the Language Transition Program. The school uses ESOL classes for students who have left the program but still need language support.

While in the program, the students' contact with English speakers is limited to elective classes such as physical education, music, art and drama, but the program's goal is to mainstream the students. On Thursday, the ninth student to move out of the program was preparing for the transition.

Students who complete the program get the safety net of ESOL, but the transition increases their opportunities for success.

"We change their schedule a little to ease them over," Levitt said.

In the meantime, the students face challenges in the classroom.

Spanish is a phonetic language, meaning the words are pronounced as spelled. English, on the other hand, is not. The language has words, such as "enough," with sounds that contradict the spelling.

"It's a little hard," sixth-grader Aracely Romero, 12, said about learning English. "Some words are not pronounced really well."

Segars said non-English speakers first "hear and understand English, then read and understand it and finally, they begin to speak it. It takes a few years to connect it all."

Silveira said she believes the efforts, as grueling or costly as they may be, can have high returns for the students as well as society.

"It takes time, but with the right environment and encouragement, they can do it," she said. "They can learn English, they can finish school and once they finish school, they can get a good job."