An intrinsic problem to the DC charter system - admin becoming unresponsive?

[Anonymous]

9:24 posting again. I predict that the middling current head will be gone in 1 or 2 years. She's overstayed her welcome in my books and those of many other upper grades parents.

I see her being replaced by a native speaker of Mandarin who knows the Mainland ed culture, and how to build a strong public school teaching team in this country. Also predict that parents will see a big change very quickly. All the parents won't like it, because the booster cult is strong and the pressure for parents to take YY academics seriously is minimal. Most will.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the input, this is helpful. I first started feeling a little uncomfortable when they scheduled the organized tours for early May—right after initial acceptable period had ended. Why wouldn’t they do it some time within the entire month between lottery results and acceptance? And then it is scheduled during PARCC testing? You would think they would have wanted to avoid welcoming in herds of new people while students were testing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fluency/cultural issues give rise to classroom management issues in Chinese classes, which is to say almost half the time. The head doesn't have an intimate knowledge of Chinese culture or the education system in Mainland China. This means she doesn't really have head around how Chinese teachers have been trained, and what sort of teaching experience they bring to YY. She knows a lot more than she did 7 or 8 years ago, but it's not enough.

The result is that the Chinese classes can be poorly managed, particularly from 2nd grade+. The craziest kids are those who struggle to understand what Chinese teachers are saying (no shortage of them). Kids get used to acting up in Chinese classes and import the dynamic to other classes, particularly ELA.

The DCI Chinese track suffers from a toned down version of imported rowdiness. Some YY and DCI parents leave because of the craziness of the Chinese classes.

This is true in every grade, and the poor classroom management leads to other issues such as bullying. The teachers have extremely poor social emotional development skills, and just aren't equipped to manage these issues for kids of any socioeconomic background. It shows more in the upper grades when behavior issues typically become more noticeable. By first or second grade, there are serious problems.

The classroom management issues lead to poor standardized test scores for ELA and Math, along with just generally poor teaching skills across the board. Yu Ying has some teachers who seem to really care, but they're just not being developed appropriately. There's just no excuse for the low scores given the relatively high SES of the student body. By second grade, the gap for English is supposed to close for language immersion, but it hasn't. Of course your kid will be at the school for 4-5 years by the time you realize the teaching is just weak, as opposed to a temporary gap due to the nature of language immersion.

The Head of School surrounded herself with sycophants as opposed to looking for the best leaders to improve the school. As a result, the administration's approach seems to be more about sticking to rules and getting kids and parents in line, as opposed to trying to figure out how to work with parents and students to resolve serious issues. There's also a culture of booster parents attacking parents who try to identify areas for improvement, and see their role as defending the administration. I'm sure you've seen some of them here.

That said, there are lots of great students and parents too, and it's the only Chinese immersion game in town.

It's a shame because YY has the opportunity to be an excellent school, but it won't get there with the current leadership.

+1,000. Thank you. Good Lord, you must be a terminally entitled Cantonese speaker to go at YY like this.

YY isn't really the only Chinese immersion game in town. Some of us troop to MoCo heritage language schools where if a family doesn't have at least one immigrant parent, Chinese au pairs do the trick. You meet DC families where kids speak (read and write) pretty good Chinese although their parents aren't native speakers and they aren't YY students. Some of these kids attend privates with strong Chinese programs, particularly Sidwell and WIS. We're very fortunate to have the MoCo ethnic community as a language learning resource in this Mero area.

[Anonymous]

There are also Deal, BASIS and Wilson students whose Chinese is surprisingly good although they don't come from ethnic families (after starting at Brent in ES, Deal in 6th, or BASIS in 7th). These families supplement with tutors, in the MoCo heritage programs, Concordia camps etc. There is even the odd native speaker, and kids who mainly grew up in China due to the parents' jobs there. BASIS, Deal and Wilson have excellent Chinese teachers these days. Maury and Thompson ES also teach some Chinese.

YY Chinese isn't really immersion. You need native classmates and/or at least one adult in the home for real immersion. You can easily find the classmates in MoCo on weekends if you care to look. The heritage program rates are very reasonable.

[Anonymous]

Not so responsive DC charters admins love to claim that their schools offer one of a kind educational experiences.

Look around the Metro area, there are good alternatives if you're determined to find and use them, and can afford to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not so responsive DC charters admins love to claim that their schools offer one of a kind educational experiences.

Look around the Metro area, there are good alternatives if you're determined to find and use them, and can afford to.

There aren't many, if any, truly good schools in the area. I'm from Michigan and our local school system is superior to anything this area has to offer. Agree about charters and public schools. The only schools I would consider around here are some of the top tier privates.

[Anonymous]

If you're lucky enough to be IB for Deal at YY, don't make the mistake of thinking you need to continue to DCI for strong Chinese instruction.

We bailed for Deal where our 6th grader is an a Chinese class with 8th graders (still not hard enough but good enough). Our excellent, homework heavy MoCo weekend program is much closer to our home than DCI. DC works with a good Mandarin tutor twice a week. The academics and extra curiculars at Deal are head and shoulders above DCI. No comparison.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not so responsive DC charters admins love to claim that their schools offer one of a kind educational experiences.

Look around the Metro area, there are good alternatives if you're determined to find and use them, and can afford to.

There aren't many, if any, truly good schools in the area. I'm from Michigan and our local school system is superior to anything this area has to offer. Agree about charters and public schools. The only schools I would consider around here are some of the top tier privates.

Our family is also from MI, Ann Arbor, and I couldn't agree more.

[Anonymous]

Michigan is the home of Supreme Court approved segregation.

Your frame is tainted.

[Anonymous]

DC is the home of one of the several lowest performing and most scandal ridden school districts in the country for AAs. Your claim is heartbreaking.

[Anonymous]

Can someone offer more information about the academics at DCI? We are at a feeder but don't know anyone there so have been having trouble finding information about the school. Much of what I read on these posts is emotionally charged. Looking for honest pros and cons from parents who have children at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone offer more information about the academics at DCI? We are at a feeder but don't know anyone there so have been having trouble finding information about the school. Much of what I read on these posts is emotionally charged. Looking for honest pros and cons from parents who have children at the school.

If you want to discuss that I would search for an old DCI thread and post there. I doubt many people who could answer your questions are looking in this random thread.

But if you want deep feedback you need to talk with people in real life, not on this website. It's anonymous and can be helpful in certain ways because of that, but take it with a big heaping of salt as you weigh what you read here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not so responsive DC charters admins love to claim that their schools offer one of a kind educational experiences.

Look around the Metro area, there are good alternatives if you're determined to find and use them, and can afford to.

There aren't many, if any, truly good schools in the area. I'm from Michigan and our local school system is superior to anything this area has to offer. Agree about charters and public schools. The only schools I would consider around here are some of the top tier privates.

Our family is also from MI, Ann Arbor, and I couldn't agree more.

Which privates will you apply to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just fyi 8:55 -- there is no such thing or entity called DCPC

yeah, what are they talking about?

Also, PP who wants to discuss YY in depth, please stop derailed and create your own thread. Let's stay on topic somewhat please? ---OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not so responsive DC charters admins love to claim that their schools offer one of a kind educational experiences.

Look around the Metro area, there are good alternatives if you're determined to find and use them, and can afford to.

There aren't many, if any, truly good schools in the area. I'm from Michigan and our local school system is superior to anything this area has to offer. Agree about charters and public schools. The only schools I would consider around here are some of the top tier privates.

This is also way off topic. We really don't care. Thanks, Michigan, get off my thread

-- OP