A $250,000 state grant will help the Mineola school district grow a program aimed at making students into bilingual citizens of the world. The grant from the state Education Department’s Office of Bilingual Education and World Languages, awarded in mid-January, will fund the expansion of the district’s “dual language program,” .....

eventually allowing students to take classes in both English and Spanish from kindergarten through middle school.

The program launched in fifth-grade classes at Mineola Middle School this year and will start in grades six and seven in the next two years, Nicole Moriarty, the district’s director of English as a new language, said. 

It teaches children a second language at a young age, something that has huge value for both English and Spanish speakers, Moriarty said.