Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times

Maci Ratcliffe (left) and Emily Surface, both 14, use their computers to work on Latin lessons at Pulaski Middle School. Pulaski County school administrators are examining the possibilities of expanding the language program next school year.

PULASKI -- Who cares if Latin is a dead language?

A group of Pulaski County middle school students who have been getting lessons in Latin will learn more about the culture next month. It's the culminating activity of an after-school online language program that students began in February. Students will visit Radford University and receive a lesson on Latin and a tour of the school.

The district is examining the possibilities of expanding the language program next school year.

"We never really had the money to hire the instructors or to buy the equipment for distance learning," Superintendent Don Stowers said.

He wanted to find a way to get students learning foreign languages early, so in October district staff began looking at Rosetta Stone software.

Now, a group of students at Pulaski and Dublin middle schools and Dublin Elementary School takes part in the after-school program.

The software, which uses a mix of repetitive images, text and sound to teach students vocabulary and grammar, gives Pulaski County a way to expand its language offerings even though it doesn't have teachers for some subjects. The district bought licenses for 50 computers. Teachers and staff can use another 50 free licenses. It costs about $17,000 and is valid through January.

"It will continue next year. Whether we expand still is undecided," Stowers said.

He wanted to take advantage of new computer labs at Riverlawn Elementary School in Fairlawn to offer the program, but he said the tight operating budget might preclude the purchase of more licenses.

Schools across the nation have used similar programs to make up for a shortage of language instructors.

Marty Abbott, director of education for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, said she's seeing more elementary schools use programs such as Rosetta Stone because of high demand from parents that their children learn a second language.

Stowers said the decision to teach both Spanish and Latin in Pulaski County also comes, in part, from a growing Spanish-speaking population.

Eighth-grader Sebastian Ruiz is one of those speakers. He spends three days a week at Pulaski Middle School wearing headphones and using the computer to learn Latin vocabulary and phrases.

To him, it's fun. And because he already knows Spanish, he said it's good to learn something different.

He wants to parlay his Latin knowledge into a career in the medical field one day. But when he attends the high school next year, he won't get to take more Latin lessons.

Pulaski County High School only offers Spanish, French and German classes. This year, 667 students are enrolled in foreign languages.

Elementary and middle school students would have no language courses without the online program.

Students in Virginia must take three years of one language or two years of two languages to receive an advanced studies diploma, according to the Virginia Department of Education.

Stowers, who hired Karen Gerlach to be the district's part-time online language supervisor to oversee the Rosetta Stone program, said he sees it more as a way to expose students to languages earlier than high school.

He chose Latin, which is seeing a resurgence in public schools, because he thought it could help with other subjects, such as English or science, as well as those students who might be interested in the medical field.

"We wanted to show too the relationship of English to other languages," Stowers said.

That, he added, could help students when they take high-stakes exams such as the Standards of Learning.