MCPS Spanish immersion schools

[Anonymous]

What do you like about your Spanish immersion program? What don't you like about it? Are you happy or is your kid happy with the style and level of Spanish taught? How about the teachers your child has?

When your child goes to middle school from immersion, what level Spanish do they take in 6th grade?

Trying to move to a neighborhood that houses Spanish immersion, tho I know it is lottery and living in the neighborhood does not necessarily matter.

[Anonymous]

I have kids in two different immersion programs. The first six months of kindergarten is ROUGH. Teachers start from day one in the target language. So get ready for a lot of meltdowns.

My kids both read in English later than their peers but caught up easily.

Teachers and programs have been great to us.

They take Spanish 1 in middle school (the same curriculum that high schoolers take).

Look at the various schools as some do give preference to the neighborhood. For example I think William Tyler Page holds about half the spots for neighborhood. During K orientation they were asking if anyone else from the neighborhood wanted to get into Spanish otherwise they were opening it up to the out of bounds waiting list.

[Anonymous]

We have kids in ES and MS Spanish immersion.

What I like about it is that most parents in the program, at least the ones that I have come in contact with, put effort into their kids doing well in school. I also like that they have the same 52 classmates in ES. The classes may mix up from grade to grade but its the same kids.

They have learned Spanish, although they shy away from using it. You as a parent have to ensure they understand what needs to be done on HW assignments, so it may be hard if you are not a Spanish speaker.

My kids have had mostly good teachers. A couple we didn't care for but that is to be expected. Most of the teachers are from South Ameeica or Puerto Rico. I don't like that some teachers do not stay teacher in the program for a long time. I don't know if it is because of demanding parents or something to do with the school or curriculum.

My oldest is currently at Westland MD. In my opinion, the Spanish is more challenging in MS, but our kid states his favorite teacher in the Spanish immersion teacher.

I definitely think that you should be prepared to put in longer hours into helping your child if they get into immersion compared to if they enroll at their home school.

Another challenge is that their classmates live all over the County so you do not get the neighborhood bond that you see at a local school. Setting up playdates and attending activities take longer to participate in becuase of the distance to places and the amount of traffic we have in this area.

Overall, it has been a blessing to have them attend school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you like about your Spanish immersion program? What don't you like about it? Are you happy or is your kid happy with the style and level of Spanish taught? How about the teachers your child has?

When your child goes to middle school from immersion, what level Spanish do they take in 6th grade?

Trying to move to a neighborhood that houses Spanish immersion, tho I know it is lottery and living in the neighborhood does not necessarily matter.

You may want to consider moving to a neighborhood of a two-way immersion school, as there is no lottery for those programs; all students are included.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/esol/es/#twowayimmersion

[Anonymous]

Ask for the data form these immersion experiments. Does it make a difference for native English speakers? Or is it just a fancy excuse to bus kids in to communities with high populations of native Spanish soeajers to increase the school’s report card? Everyone I know who started in one has left once they saw what was behind the curtain

[Anonymous]

"Ask for the data form these immersion experiments. Does it make a difference for native English speakers? Or is it just a fancy excuse to bus kids in to communities with high populations of native Spanish soeajers to increase the school’s report card? Everyone I know who started in one has left once they saw what was behind the curtain"

Yes we have heard of the flight, non native Spanish speakers trying to get out of their home school that is filled with native Spanish. will look at data too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ask for the data form these immersion experiments. Does it make a difference for native English speakers? Or is it just a fancy excuse to bus kids in to communities with high populations of native Spanish soeajers to increase the school’s report card? Everyone I know who started in one has left once they saw what was behind the curtain

I haven’t heard of this happening at the one-way immersion schools here. You don’t sound like you’re referring to mcps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have kids in two different immersion programs. The first six months of kindergarten is ROUGH. Teachers start from day one in the target language. So get ready for a lot of meltdowns.

My kids both read in English later than their peers but caught up easily.

Teachers and programs have been great to us.

They take Spanish 1 in middle school (the same curriculum that high schoolers take).

Look at the various schools as some do give preference to the neighborhood. For example I think William Tyler Page holds about half the spots for neighborhood. During K orientation they were asking if anyone else from the neighborhood wanted to get into Spanish otherwise they were opening it up to the out of bounds waiting list.

Does this mean that, assuming the one-way immersion students take all three years of Spanish in MS, that they will take Spanish 4 as their first Spanish class in HS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask for the data form these immersion experiments. Does it make a difference for native English speakers? Or is it just a fancy excuse to bus kids in to communities with high populations of native Spanish soeajers to increase the school’s report card? Everyone I know who started in one has left once they saw what was behind the curtain

I haven’t heard of this happening at the one-way immersion schools here. You don’t sound like you’re referring to mcps.

Agree. We didn’t win the lottery last year but we have multiple friends in several of the schools and I hear such positive reports. As an aside, some of the programs are (unfortunately, in my opinion) housed in relatively rich schools that don’t need to “draw” wealthier students in.

I think overwhelmingly parents enroll their kids in these programs because they are enthusiastic about foreign language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have kids in two different immersion programs. The first six months of kindergarten is ROUGH. Teachers start from day one in the target language. So get ready for a lot of meltdowns.

My kids both read in English later than their peers but caught up easily.

Teachers and programs have been great to us.

They take Spanish 1 in middle school (the same curriculum that high schoolers take).

Look at the various schools as some do give preference to the neighborhood. For example I think William Tyler Page holds about half the spots for neighborhood. During K orientation they were asking if anyone else from the neighborhood wanted to get into Spanish otherwise they were opening it up to the out of bounds waiting list.

Does this mean that, assuming the one-way immersion students take all three years of Spanish in MS, that they will take Spanish 4 as their first Spanish class in HS?

There’s no high school component to the program. I don’t think that’s right about Spanish 1 in MS if the students continue the program. There are immersion middle schools with special classes. Not everyone continues however.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ask for the data form these immersion experiments. Does it make a difference for native English speakers? Or is it just a fancy excuse to bus kids in to communities with high populations of native Spanish soeajers to increase the school’s report card? Everyone I know who started in one has left once they saw what was behind the curtain

This is a weird critique, since most of the kids at WTPES and BMES are coming from elsewhere in the down-county, and RCFES is a BCC feeder.

[Anonymous]

We're at a different local county in dual immersion, but I'm sure they're the same in MCPS. Our dual immersion classrooms have the top grades in every grade. They test the highest. This was a really big side benefit that we didn't even know about prior. Likely because all the parents are very involved in their kids' educations and had to do more to get them in, so the pool is more heavily weighted towards parents caring. Additionally, we haven't had one single out of control kid in the class versus my other kids' K classroom was evacuated weekly.

Ours also separated the kids into two classrooms based on their home language. Classroom A was Spanish speakers (some did not speak English), Classroom B was English speakers at home. Not sure if they do that throughout elementary or if that was just for K. It was helpful though because all the English speakers started out at 0 Spanish skills on day 1 and the teacher was able to work with them all at the same level.

I have one kid in dual immersion and one kid in regular. Dual immersion has just been incredible and we wish our other kid had been accepted. Just a much more enjoyable K experience.

[Anonymous]

We got into Tyler page as a K that was out of boundary. There are definitely challenges keeping teachers. I’ve heard that this generally points to admin problems but I haven’t heard a word about that. I just think a teacher that is capable of doing second language teaching is very rare so they can “write their own ticket”. We’ve been very happy with the school and the payoff for the kids is really great for their whole life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask for the data form these immersion experiments. Does it make a difference for native English speakers? Or is it just a fancy excuse to bus kids in to communities with high populations of native Spanish soeajers to increase the school’s report card? Everyone I know who started in one has left once they saw what was behind the curtain

This is a weird critique, since most of the kids at WTPES and BMES are coming from elsewhere in the down-county, and RCFES is a BCC feeder.

Yes I agree, and also two-way is inbounds only so there is no busing. I don’t think that PP is familiar with mcps at all.

[Anonymous]

Another happy parent at Page ES full Spanish immersion. It’s been great for DC to acquire a new language at this age when the acquisition process is so much easier. Also the administration at Page is top notch.

Agree with the cons already posted, although DC has personally been fortunate not to have had teacher turnover.

We don’t speak Spanish at home but with Google translate we can still help with homework.

Also, DC reads fluently in Spanish and English, but can’t spell very well in English yet. We may have to get an English spelling tutor at some point.