West High School's Chinese program might be ending. Its cancellation could leave some students in a lurch.
West High School plans to end its Chinese language program after the 2025-26 academic year. Ninth grader Shelby Gan commutes up to 40 minutes via FrontRunner from her home in Kaysville to attend Salt Lake City’s West High School.
“A lot of people around the world use it, and it’s very useful to learn it,” Gan said. “... I’m Chinese, both my parents immigrated from China, and I want to learn this language to keep connecting with my culture.” But Gan isn’t sure she’ll finish up her career at West or take Chinese classes there ever again after the school announced last month that its Chinese program would be phased out after next year due to enrollment concerns. Now, officials say the school will teach all of its traditional Chinese offerings next year, but that the program isn’t guaranteed to continue after that. The unease leaves some students in a lurch, especially those like Gan, who can’t enroll in the IB program, as it’s known, until junior year but planned to take advanced Chinese classes as a part of it. The IB diploma is an advanced set of high school classes and requirements that allows students to enroll in universities across the globe. It also is seen as a way to show admissions officers a student’s readiness for college-level courses. It requires taking advanced language courses. Those classes are simply electives for the rest of West’s student body. “IB is harder, and why do you do IB? Because you want to take the challenges,” Gan’s mother, Yin Liu, said. “You want to practice your time management skills, not just as a high school student, but for your life. And you want to be exposed to those opportunities and to pursue something that’s meaningful.”said Chinese courses had the second-lowest student interest of any of the six languages taught at the school. Only Arabic draws fewer students. The Arabic teacher, however, also leads French classes, meaning that staffer has more students under her wing. On the other hand, more students want to take Spanish than the school can teach. Administrators may look to replace the Chinese teacher with a new instructor in another field at the end of the next academic year. West High Principal Wayne Culley opted to end the Chinese language program at the Salt Lake City school. “Last year and this upcoming year, we could use another Spanish teacher. We could use another teacher,” Culley said. “We could use smaller class sizes in some of our general ed classes.”At one time, the school also received outside funding from a nonprofit to pay a portion of the Chinese teacher’s salary. The Salt Lake City School District could not confirm in time for publication where those funds came from or for how long the school received them.Chinese students — and their parents — have a range of reasons for why they attend West. Some want to connect with their heritage and families through language. Others want to learn it in preparation for serving a full-time mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many want to graduate with an IB diploma, with Chinese as their language of choice. For some, it’s a mix of reasons. Zac Imel and Karen Tao’s son Jiajia wanted to complete the IB program and learn his family’s tongue. His parents prioritized sending him to a public school where he could be around all types of kids.said. “It definitely is a unique, amazing school, and it feels like some part of that is being pulled out.”While some families heard from their students’ guidance counselors that Chinese classes could be going away, an email to families April 24 relayed that the offerings would be phased out. The school had not held any public meetings about the program. Since then, parents and administrators have met at least twice to hear one another out. On Friday, district spokesperson Yándary Chatwin confirmed all Chinese courses with student interest would be taught during the 2025-26 school year, but that the program’s status was still up in the air after that. “It’s really a difficult decision to make to consider cutting a language that means so much to so many people,” Chatwin said. “It’s not due to lack of valuing that language or the communities who speak it, but rather trying to meet the needs of our students with very limited resources.” School district board member Ashley Anderson, who represents the West High area, said the panel “does not make decisions about what courses are offered at each high school” and declined to answer questions about the Chinese program.The instability has set off a scramble for the 83 students who requested to take Chinese classes next year. Some, especially soon-to-be seniors in the IB program, won’t have to make any changes. Others, like Gan and Imel, still have to decide whether they will stay at West and hope the program remains or attempt to learn a new language faster to stay on the IB track. Another option is to transfer to another school with Mandarin and IB offerings. No other public high school in Salt Lake City offers IB Chinese classes. Salt Lake County schools that do includeImel‘s parents said they planned to keep him at West, noting that he loves playing basketball there and enjoys journalism and other electives.In case you missed itUtah Senate unanimously approves Cox’s pick to head a state department — without asking about his checkered pastWhy are so many people of faith, including Latter-day Saints, choosing cremation over burial?
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