Reseda High School junior Napoleon Olarte started his fall semester Wednesday with classes in English as a second language.

Karla Martinez, a Reseda high sophomore, is tackling a world history course taught in Spanish--the only language she fully understands.

And Anouar Benami, who grew up speaking Arabic, began his school year in so-called sheltered English, classes for students just getting a grip on the language.

The students represent the melange of bilingual programs in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where about 295,000 students--46% of the student body--speak little or no English. These limited-English speakers face a tougher struggle than most students seeking to earn a high school diploma. And as they begin the 1995-96 school year, they also have a new worry.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole on Monday joined a growing national movement calling for an end to bilingual education, saying students should be taught subjects only in English. Dole, the leading candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, said further that English should be the nation's official language.

That campaign position didn't go over well at Reseda High.

"We need support," said Olarte, who said he wants to be a civil engineer. "If they give us the opportunity to come here and be successful, they also have to help us learn the language."

As the school year opened at 280 campuses in the nation's second-largest district this week, thousands of youngsters began learning their first words in English, most in bilingual classes.

At Nevada Avenue Elementary School in Canoga Park, for example, about 390 of the school's 500 students who began the school year on Wednesday do not speak fluent English. Some of the students, in fact, had never been in a U.S. school before, said Nevada Principal Tom Stevens. Good teachers are essential for the bilingual classes, which are designed for students to learn their subjects as they gradually learn English, Stevens said.

At Reseda High, about 137 students transferred out of bilingual classes after becoming proficient in English. While administrators applaud the combined efforts of the students and their teachers, they lament the fact that the school now loses $242 in special bilingual funding for each student who masters English.

"We should be rewarded, not punished for moving these kids," said Linda Rosenberg, the bilingual coordinator at Reseda.