A little less than a decade ago, the State Board of Education changed the graduation requirements for World Language classes. Previously, high school seniors needed to take two credits of another language. Now, only one credit is needed and can be fulfilled by a visual or performing arts class. Students are also able to fulfill this credit in middle school. As important as art classes are in schools they do not exercise the brain that learning a new language does. Cambridge University found that people who speak more than one language are found to have more neurons and a more boosted brain reserve than monolingual people. Bilingual people are also less likely to experience dementia and other degenerative brain conditions. Students learning a new language have been found to have better academic performance, improved concentration, a stronger memory, better communication skills, and improved creativity. 

In the high school, we used to offer four different languages: Chinese, French, German, and Spanish. In 2010, French was removed from the school curriculum despite a steady interest. The opportunities to pursue languages beyond Spanish have shrunk. In 2021, Chinese and German were removed from the middle schools.  For over nine years, attendance in first year Chinese classes averaged at being over 30 students. The attendance after it was removed averaged at about 15 students. The 2017-2018 school year had 43 students in first year Chinese. The 2021-2022 school year only had nine students in first year Chinese. Students currently enrolled in Chinese 4A say that they would have loved to take Chinese in middle school and Brian Kleinsmith, the Chinese teacher, says that the removal of the classes from middle school irreversibly damaged their attendance numbers. Kleinsmith also says that he believes more students would continue classes past the required two trimesters if there were more options for language classes to take. 

Darien Stimely, the multilingual teacher, said that she believes the more languages people learn the better. While English is the most spoken language in the world, only 25% of those 1.52 billion people are native speakers. The second most spoken language is Mandarin Chinese, which has 941 million native speakers, a 2.5% increase from English. Spanish is the fourth most spoken language in the world, at about 560 million, with about 100 million more native speakers than English. Chinese and Spanish combined are spoken in more than 100 countries. Stimely also points out the rise of Arabic, the fifth most spoken language, as a second language. Only 313 million out of 422 million people are native speakers of the language. 

The internet continues to connect people from across the globe with different languages being spoken in many different countries.  This opens people up to more work and learning opportunities, but it also comes with the need to communicate in more than one language. Less opportunities may be available to monolingual people. To keep up with the every growing planet, experts recommend people become fluent in at least two languages.