Despite a shortage of money and qualified instructors to teach foreign languages, Vineyard schools officials expressed support at their meeting last Thursday for the goal of graduating students from the high school with fluency in a language other than English.

Four of the five elementary schools as well as the charter school offer Spanish instruction, and the high school offers courses in Spanish, French and German. But the language program would need to be expanded for all students to become proficient. “This is a very high goal, to say that all students are going to be proficient in a language,” said assistant superintendent Laurie Halt.

She said the place to begin working toward the goal was in the elementary schools, where language teaching is not uniform.

“I’m sure what’s popping out to you is an inequity,” she said, referring to a chart that lists the programs offered in Island elementary schools. The Tisbury School is the only school to offer Spanish for all grades, kindergarten through eight. The Edgartown and West Tisbury schools offer the course to grades three through eight, and the Oak Bluffs School to grades six through eight. The Chilmark School does not currently offer a language course.

Superintendent Dr. James H. Weiss explained that the district has in the past attempted to offer languages to all Island children in grades kindergarten through eight, but ran into several obstacles. The first was in finding licensed instructors. And tight budgets further restricted the schools from hiring more Spanish teachers.

Eleven teachers instruct more than 1,100 students in world languages throughout the district, and the language program at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School was cited as strong. “We have quite a few kids going beyond the requirement that they need for [college] admissions,” said guidance director Michael McCarthy.

While the courses are electives in the curriculum, language teachers on the Island take them very seriously. “We treat what we do as teaching a core academic subject,” said high school world language department chair Justine De Oliveira.

“It seems that there is great success in the high school, but it doesn’t seem to carry over,” said school committee vice chairman Roxanne Ackerman, comparing the high school and elementary school programs.

The committee agreed that even though elementary language instruction is limited to Spanish, enhancing the program in those early years could help students excel in the high school language programs more than they are now. Ms. De Oliveria said exposure to any foreign language early on helps kids become proficient in a language later.

It also enhances the entire learning experience for students, Mrs. Halt said: “What we have generated is an interest in the outside world.”

In other business, Mrs. Halt proposed a new data management system that would coordinate important information from all six schools. “It’s our belief that the Martha’s Vineyard Public Schools must improve our technology infrastructure,” she said.

Schools have been required to collect data on such things as test scores and attendance for many years, responsibilities which increased dramatically with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002.

Mrs. Halt presented the committee with a seven-step plan for setting up a synchronized data management system, and a list of companies that could set up such a system here.

The steps would include deciding what the district needed to learn about the schools, and what information already is being collected. Responsibilities would need to be assigned to different employees, possibly altering some job descriptions, and employees would have to be trained in the use of the new system. The final step would be to analyze the data collected.

“The goal is then to create a culture of information within the district,” said Mrs. Halt. She said that under the current systems, many employees do not have access to information that they need and spend too much time trying to chase it down. “We’re not really in a place yet where we’re really gifted at analyzing the data, because it’s not at our fingertips,” she said.

Some committee members were doubtful about the need for a new system.

“I worry a little bit about a cultural phenomenon we’re all living with right now, where suddenly data are highly valued,” said committee member Marshall Segall. “Before we decide what data we need to collect, I think there is a prior question; what do we need it for? Until you can specify a purpose there is a risk of accumulating data that will serve no purpose,” he said.

But Dr. Weiss agreed that a cohesive data management system is necessary. “A day does not go by where one of you doesn’t call our office and want an answer to a question. In many cases, we have a very difficult time finding the answer,” he said. “It sometimes boils down to, you get in your car and drive from building to building to talk to people, and hope that they know.”

The committee agreed to look into the cost of such a project and grant funding possibilities.