That's actually because (this is from my experiences in high school, not bs), in California you have to pass a foriegn language to "graduate". However, if your native language is say Spanish (this is the situation I ran into with another student), and you don't speak English, you can STILL take Spanish as your "foriegn" language. They have to take English class, sure, but English class doesn't teach ENGLISH, it teaches how to write and read; but not specifically ENGLISH. In fact, at my school - they had teachers specifically for the Spanish kids in English class, to translate for them so they could pass.

So to clarify this, Spanish kids who speak only Spanish can take Spanish as their foriegn language. American kids who speak only English have to take Spanish (or some other language) as their foriegn language.

I actually fought this with my school board, using the argument that there is no legal definition of "our" language (that's how the Spanish kids are able to take Spanish as their "foriegn" language) therefor English could be my foriegn language. I also used the argument stated above about the Spanish kid, and that if they wanted me to admit that English is our national language and therefor not foriegn (so I would then have to take another language), then the Spanish speaking kids would have to do the same, and quit taking Spanish classes as their foriegn language.

They let me graduate anyway and that was that, but I kind of wish I had persued it more and changed it.

Anyhow, that's probably why you ran into that....