By Angela Hatton
Hopkinsville, KY – Christian County Public School District is the first in western Kentucky offer Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese in elementary students. Japanese is the newest addition, with the first teachers beginning this school year. Superintendent Brady Link says officials made the decision to offer Asian language classes to their youngest students to help prepare them for the global environment.
"We felt like that, y'know, at one time it was French and German, and still those are important, but right now, we feel that the Asian languages are going to be the languages of the future."
The funding for the Japanese teachers comes from a partnership grant with Murray State University. According to district spokesperson Regan Honeycutt, the only other system to offer the same classes to elementary students is Fayette County.