CHICAGO — Seventh grader Sofiia Bilinska struggled with English when she moved from Ukraine to Chicago two years ago — then she joined the Ukrainian bilingual program at Columbus Elementary School.
“I love that every student in the program, someone helps you. When I came to the school, I didn’t know English at all. For two years, I learned how to speak and understand” the language, she said.
Sofiia is once again leaning on her classmates as Russia continues its devastating attack on Ukraine. At Columbus Elementary in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood, more than a quarter of the school’s 234 students receive specialized instruction in both Ukrainian and English, a unique Chicago Public Schools program that began some two decades ago as more Ukrainian families settled in the area, Principal Wendy Garr-Oleksy said.
