| The study investigated whether or not a bilingual/bicultural program would be more satisfatory to stakeholders. The study compared five (5) Bilingual School Organizations (BISO) with thirteen (13) demographically similar schools that are not BISO in Miami-Dade County Public Schools located in Miami, Florida. The participants included students, teachers, and parents. The participants answered a school climate survey for each year over a period of two (2) consecutive school years, 1998–1999 and 1999–2000. The activity was designed to facilitate the sharing of the participants level of satisfaction with the educational institutions that they were stakeholders in. The structure of the surveys provided a framework for examining how the particular educational delivery method of their school focused and dealt with educational issues that met with the participants' satisfaction. This was achieved by district-wide random selection of stakeholders in the areas of both bilingual education schools and non-bilingual education schools. Approximately fifty percent of stakeholder participants for each school selected were provided a school climate survey. Each stakeholder participant was given approximately two (2) weeks to respond and return the blind survey in a sealed envelope to their home school. Each school forwarded these sealed envelopes to the district office which then opened and tabulated the findings. This process also identified the strengths and weakness of the schools' instructional delivery methods, safety and public relations. The surveys completed by the stakeholder participants, using a qualitative research methodology, established that there was no statistically significant difference in the satisfaction of stakeholders of a school implementing a bilingual/bicultural program as compared to a school that is not using such a program in a large urban metropolitan district. This comparative study was subject to certain limitations. The study was limited to only those stakeholder participants that were randomly selected to respond. Therefore, not all stakeholders at each site had the opportunity to respond. The study was also limited by the percent of responses returned by the stakeholder participants as well as any limitations and difficulties encountered by relying on the mail system. |
