I received a call yesterday from my friend who teaches ESL at the college. She said her enrollment is now between 11-13 students (the question of how many comes up because of a mistake and 2 students were enrolled incorrectly). So she may actually only have 11 students. The class requires she have at least 15 students. It is a 6 unit class which meets 2hrs a day, 5 days a week. So it is an expensive class. My friend told me that it costs what 3 English classes would cost and that there are not enough English classes to meet student demands. So she said she would understand is they canceled the class. She said they are laying off instructors right and left, so it would make perfect sense to cancel it.
What she's finally coming around to really agreeing with is my anger at those who could take advantage of this class and learn English, but they won't. My friend had signs printed up that cost her over $800 to advertise the ESL department at the college, but the cities in Ventura County didn't want them put up. They called the colleges president and complained. So my friend put an ad in a bilingual paper for $200, and the school told her to cancel it and not advertise.
The school would like to get rid of the ESL classes altogether because they're not considered academic. But what bothers me so much is that with a BOGG fee waiver the classes are basically free, and yet they still won't attend the classes and refuse to put the effort into learning English.
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