Geneva D-304 eyes end of German due to declining enrollment

The numbers tell the story for the 2025-26 school year at Geneva Community Unit School District 304:

• About 100 students set to take German classes from eighth to 12th grade for the 2025-26 school year.

• About 1,100 students are on track to take in Spanish classes from eighth to 12 grade.

As school officials grapple with the prospect of sunsetting its German language program due to declining enrollment, supporters lobbied against letting the program die.

Superintendent Andrew Barrett first broached the issue in his report at the April 28 meeting. He said if the district is going to keep German as a language from middle school through high school, it not only needs more students, it faces the retirement of one of its two teachers.

“We have three world languages at Geneva High School – Spanish, French and German,” Barrett said. “That program [German] has been shrinking. We’ve seen the decline not only in district enrollment, but in that program.”

The issue is, if the district offers German 1, it has to continue offering through German 5, to guarantee students the opportunity to go through the whole program – which is what the district is going to do for the current students, Barrett said.

A language is not like offering AP psychology and then dropping it for lack of interest.

With a world language, the district can’t just not run it one year, then pick it up the next.

“These are hard conversations,” Barrett said.

Noting a state law requiring two years of high school world language study goes into effect in 2028, Barrett said he doubted every high school in Illinois could find enough staff.

“Our general sense is there is no way that will actually stick because it is literally a physical impossibility,” Barrett said.

Previously, students needed one year of either a world language or another elective like art, music or a Career and Technical Education program.

The May 12 meeting brought out supporters – even from the German Chamber of Commerce West – imploring Barrett and the board to preserve German as one of its world language offerings.

Among them were Geneva German teacher Rene Swidenbank, St. Charles North German teacher Brian Maloney, Jessica Zeeck and her son, Tyler, 2024 graduate Quinn Schaeffer and Ursula Kicker, CFO of the German American Chamber of Commerce West.

“When I heard that Geneva was thinking about shutting down their German program, I just wanted to come and tell you, we as the Chamber, we take care of trade relations between Germany and the U.S.,” Kicker said. “Language is power. Not just communication, but to connect. It is super important when you learn German with all the power German companies have.”

To illustrate her point, Kicker said there are 6,000 German-based companies in the U.S. with 871,000 jobs and $656 billion in investment here.

Maloney said they moved to Geneva because of the German language program where his two sons are in two classes.

“Germany offers many advantages over the other languages,” Maloney said. “Germany has the third largest economy in the world. And many German companies have American headquarters and branches in the Chicago area.”

Germany is second only to the United Kingdom in employing Americans, he said.

Being able to speak German also provides salary premiums of $25,000 to $75,000 over other languages, Maloney said.

“I get a lot of students who want to be engineers because they know the huge advantage German offers them,” Maloney said. “A growing number of my students are Spanish language students who want to learn a third language.”

Tyler Zeeck, currently a senior in AP German, said he spent in his junior year in Germany as an exchange student.

Learning German also gave Zeeck the opportunity to visit Austria and Switzerland – a point Holda also made regarding her three sons who also took German.

“They traveled to Europe and visited four different countries,” Holda said. “It opened their eyes and shaped how they see the world. Taking away this program would also take away opportunities. Learning German gives students a competitive edge.”

Swidenbank said the World Language Program teachers were all opposed to sunsetting German.

Swidenbank said enrollments ebb and flow and always recover following a dip.

“Geneva students will have one less language to choose from,” Swidenbank said. “That is not what is best for students.”

Barrett said the issue is the ability to continue the program while facing enrollment decline.

“This feedback that we’ve heard, we don’t take it lightly,” Barrett said.

The school board is expected to take up the issue again at the May 27 meeting.

Board President Larry Cabeen’s wife, Pam, a retired French teacher from Geneva High School, said in a text that learning a language expands “one’s worldview and creates greater cultural understanding and awareness.”

“One never knows what doors will be opened or where speaking another language may lead,” Pam Cabeen said in the text. “For me personally, studying French in elementary school lead to a career as an Int’l. Purser for a major airlines, which in turn lead to becoming a French Teacher at GHS.”