I have two native Spanish speaking students who will take Spanish 3 in 8th grade and Honors Spanish 4 in 9th (we don’t currently offer AP Spanish. ) Spanish 4 fulfills the UC a-g requirements (level 3 or 4 validates the classes from jr high), but would only give them one year of language in high school. Would colleges prefer to see them take two years of another lang (we offer Latin or ASL) in high school, or would it be acceptable to use the time to instead dig deeper into other academic classes that interest them? They are both 1st gen URM students, and I want to give them the best shot at numerous colleges in addition to CA publics.
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Presumably, you want to focus this question on colleges other than UCs and CSUs for which Spanish 4 more than fulfills their admission requirements and recommendations, right?
If they do have a need for non-UC/CSU colleges to take additional foreign language courses, would taking more advanced Spanish at a local community college be an option after completing Spanish 4 in 9th grade?
Of course, if they are in 7th grade right now, could such a decision be deferred for a year or two, when it is time to choose 9th or 10th grade courses? Or is starting Latin or ASL in 8th grade under consideration?
No.
As @ucbalumnus says, the options are further Spanish at a cc or start another language at the high school. One year of Spanish in HS won’t cut it for many colleges, but will be fine for California publics.
I would advise you to follow the recommendations of the private and public colleges for admissions requirements.
I am a native speaker of Spanish. When I attended high school, the counselor advised me to take a language “other than Spanish”, if I planned to apply to the UC’s or to any privates.
She said that, yes, the Spanish would be easier for me in high school, but my home language advantage wouldn’t really challenge me, and that the colleges wanted students that were willing to take on challenges. It would help me to show that I challenged myself. So I took French. It did challenge me and I learned. I had no idea how much it would help me later in life, especially with travel and with speaking to patients with backgrounds in French. This was back in the 1970s when admissions were basically “a cakewalk”. Can’t do that now.
Our children spoke Spanish, but they’re written language skills and reading literature skills needed boosting. They took Spanish in middle school, but their counselors also advised them to continue to take the Spanish in HS to get them into the AP courses. Their counselors did not want our students to lack in foreign language skills and requirements for the HS diploma and college admissions. Each child took 4 years of foreign language. One year from the middle school allowed them to enter year two at the high school. On the HS transcript, it showed to 4th year level.
The major concern for your children is to get that high school diploma. The middle school Spanish language courses are on a middle school transcript. The high school transcript will only show courses taken at the high school. The high school transcript is what is submitted to the colleges.
We have personal experience from our son’s friend who did not get his high school diploma, at graduation, because he lacked courses that did not appear on his HS transcript. He was the Salutatorian and had to go to summer school at a community college. His acceptances were rescinded when they received the “working” transcript lacking the diploma.
With the competitiveness of the colleges now, you don’t want your children to lack anything on that transcript.
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In my kids’ district, some students finish AP Spanish by 9th or 10th grade due to the fact that they speak the language at home. The district deals with this by offering continuation Spanish classes such as Advanced Spanish Conversation, Spanish Cinema, Latin American History (taught in Spanish), and Independent Study. Some of these classes are quite small (~6 students.)
Taking Spanish for Heritage speakers at a Community College could be useful (if offered and if practical). Taking 2 or 3 years of ASL would also work but the CC Spanish for Heritage Speaker would free time at the HS level.
I suggest taking the Latin courses for as long as possible!
First, learning a different language which is NOT a native/bilingual language is an excellent intellectual exercise which helps students learn how to learn in general. Some colleges are not as impressed with a student only taking a “second” language which is actually a native language.
Second, Latin in particular is useful for both English vocabulary and understanding other language grammars, interesting in its content/subject matter, and often considered impressive for college applications.
Third, I am a Latin teacher and think everyone should learn Latin! 
Seriously, I once taught a summer course of Latin to Upward Bound high school students who were primarily bilingual, and several students said it was the most useful Upward Bound course they had ever had because it clarified English grammar for them and gave them access to myths/ancient history that they hadn’t received at home. Of course, your students may already be getting intense English grammar etc. in other courses, but in my own experience, learning Latin was central to learning English grammar explicitly. It was useful for my Russian minor and for my daughter when she took several courses of Anglo-Saxon. Many languages are inflected.
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i have a consulting place with like former ivy stanford and T20 AOs and asked them about this very topic. they said that of course, 4 years of a foreign language that isn’t native is obviously very nice. however, they don’t dig that deep and go like oh my god this guy took only 1 year of ap spanish auto reject. they mainly just scan your transcript for A’s, want rigor, foreign language isn’t too major