Feedback on Spanish Immersion at Laurel Ridge Elementary in Fairfax

[Anonymous]

Hello All,

I have a first grader who will start Spanish Immersion at Laurel Ridge and was wondering if anyone had any feedback about the program or the school.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

We're not at Laurel Ridge but at another school with Spanish immersion starting in K. We're very happy with the program and know families in all the grades. It seems the first two-three years, you may not think they're learning much and that they're not grade level in the Spanish subjects but the people I know who stuck with it say that in about third grade, the kids are working at grade level in English and in Spanish. I sometimes question the abilities of some of the Spanish language teachers (I'm bilingual as is my DH) but given our education and socio-economic status, our kids will be fine well educated. As happy as we are with the program, we recognize that it's not a good fit for every kid. We felt our oldest was struggling too much and we pulled him from the program at the end of second grade. Our middle one is doing exceptionally well and will continue in the program. Our youngest has ADHD and we felt school present enough challenges without adding the immersion challenge to it. We did not enroll him in the program and it, too, was the right decision for him.

Having met parents in and out of the program has been very interesting. The parents in the immersion program tend to be well educated, financially stable and involved with their kids and the school. The parents of the kids in the regular classrooms are much more diverse in terms of education, stability, involvement and race/ethnicity.