Taped to a wall at Seth Whitman Elementary School are more than a dozen short essays written in Spanish with wavering second-grader penmanship.

"Some of these students are native English-speakers and some of them are native Spanish-speakers," bilingual Principal Nicole Difford said, pointing to an essay.

"This is a native English-speaker, but if you look at her writing, it doesn't really look any different from" a native Spanish speaker's.

Belvidere has a large and growing Spanish-speaking population. According to census data obtained from censusreporter.org, the percentage of Spanish-speaking residents in Belvidere is nearly 10 times larger than it is in Freeport, even though the cities are about the same size. Of Belvidere's 26,100 residents, 24 percent (6,285) speak Spanish at home. Spanish-speakers account for 2.6 percent (663) of Freeport's population and 12.7 percent (19,149) of Rockford's.

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