Lottery for K for immersion school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Parents in this city take immersion far too lightly and it's not always a net positive for their children. But you'll never convince parents that feel like they won the lottery of that.

Maybe but some parents in this city take immersion far too seriously and decide if the kid isn't at native speaker level or even fluent, it's pointless. Whereas for many people, if the child is decently conversational, and not otherwise behind, that's a net positive. If you go to Europe, where they do various degrees of language immersion from elementary grades, you find people are comfortable holding conversations in multiple languages. Usually not perfectly, but well enough, and no one expects perfect fluency as the bar. As long as your child isn't stressed and the school is supportive, it's fine that they don't speak the language perfectly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you speak French why haven’t you been talking to your kid in French this whole time? Do you understand anything about raising a bilingual child?

Eye roll. You must know everything.

And the answer is no, i don't know anything I'm basically trying to survive as a parent and not kill myself. Thank you.

The response is perfection!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Parents in this city take immersion far too lightly and it's not always a net positive for their children. But you'll never convince parents that feel like they won the lottery of that.

Maybe but some parents in this city take immersion far too seriously and decide if the kid isn't at native speaker level or even fluent, it's pointless. Whereas for many people, if the child is decently conversational, and not otherwise behind, that's a net positive. If you go to Europe, where they do various degrees of language immersion from elementary grades, you find people are comfortable holding conversations in multiple languages. Usually not perfectly, but well enough, and no one expects perfect fluency as the bar. As long as your child isn't stressed and the school is supportive, it's fine that they don't speak the language perfectly.

Right? Unless you sound like you've been speaking Venezuelan Spanish since birth, your language skills are useless!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Parents in this city take immersion far too lightly and it's not always a net positive for their children. But you'll never convince parents that feel like they won the lottery of that.

Maybe but some parents in this city take immersion far too seriously and decide if the kid isn't at native speaker level or even fluent, it's pointless. Whereas for many people, if the child is decently conversational, and not otherwise behind, that's a net positive. If you go to Europe, where they do various degrees of language immersion from elementary grades, you find people are comfortable holding conversations in multiple languages. Usually not perfectly, but well enough, and no one expects perfect fluency as the bar. As long as your child isn't stressed and the school is supportive, it's fine that they don't speak the language perfectly.

Right? Unless you sound like you've been speaking Venezuelan Spanish since birth, your language skills are useless!

Oh come on, I know way too many 3rd to 5th graders that have been in immersion since pre-K and still can't string together a sentence. At best that's a waste of everyone's time. At worst it takes away from English instruction that some kids really need. I know no immersion kids from MCPS or FCPS that speak so poorly in upper elementary. "Well enough" is great, but we're actually talking about "not really at all." And it's parents that don't speak the language who have no idea whether their kids actually can hold a conversation in the second language.

[Anonymous]

Stokes is a hot mess, it is not a choice I would make even I was desperate for my kid to have the immersion experience. We started with immersion Spanish but ultimately switched to DCPS because the quality of the immersion teachers in charters is much lower than our local DCPS (ward 5).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Parents in this city take immersion far too lightly and it's not always a net positive for their children. But you'll never convince parents that feel like they won the lottery of that.

Maybe but some parents in this city take immersion far too seriously and decide if the kid isn't at native speaker level or even fluent, it's pointless. Whereas for many people, if the child is decently conversational, and not otherwise behind, that's a net positive. If you go to Europe, where they do various degrees of language immersion from elementary grades, you find people are comfortable holding conversations in multiple languages. Usually not perfectly, but well enough, and no one expects perfect fluency as the bar. As long as your child isn't stressed and the school is supportive, it's fine that they don't speak the language perfectly.

Right? Unless you sound like you've been speaking Venezuelan Spanish since birth, your language skills are useless!

Oh come on, I know way too many 3rd to 5th graders that have been in immersion since pre-K and still can't string together a sentence. At best that's a waste of everyone's time. At worst it takes away from English instruction that some kids really need. I know no immersion kids from MCPS or FCPS that speak so poorly in upper elementary. "Well enough" is great, but we're actually talking about "not really at all." And it's parents that don't speak the language who have no idea whether their kids actually can hold a conversation in the second language.

^^Pretty much exactly what I was talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stokes is a hot mess, it is not a choice I would make even I was desperate for my kid to have the immersion experience. We started with immersion Spanish but ultimately switched to DCPS because the quality of the immersion teachers in charters is much lower than our local DCPS (ward 5).

Thanks for sharing, why is it a hot mess? Turnover? New bad teachers? Bad leadership?

What grade?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stokes is a hot mess, it is not a choice I would make even I was desperate for my kid to have the immersion experience. We started with immersion Spanish but ultimately switched to DCPS because the quality of the immersion teachers in charters is much lower than our local DCPS (ward 5).

Thanks for sharing, why is it a hot mess? Turnover? New bad teachers? Bad leadership?

What grade?

I would like to know too. My kid is at MV, and the teacher turnover is a real problem. I was considering a lottery attempt at Stokes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stokes is a hot mess, it is not a choice I would make even I was desperate for my kid to have the immersion experience. We started with immersion Spanish but ultimately switched to DCPS because the quality of the immersion teachers in charters is much lower than our local DCPS (ward 5).

Thanks for sharing, why is it a hot mess? Turnover? New bad teachers? Bad leadership?

What grade?

I would like to know too. My kid is at MV, and the teacher turnover is a real problem. I was considering a lottery attempt at Stokes.

MV leadership screwed up bigly w the teacher. I know a ton who shifted to DCPS (post unionization too).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stokes is a hot mess, it is not a choice I would make even I was desperate for my kid to have the immersion experience. We started with immersion Spanish but ultimately switched to DCPS because the quality of the immersion teachers in charters is much lower than our local DCPS (ward 5).

Thanks for sharing, why is it a hot mess? Turnover? New bad teachers? Bad leadership?

What grade?

Stokes is far from a hot mess. Many parents were upset with the slow return to school including ourselves, but that was the norm in DC. Teacher turnover isn’t a problem and school culture is probably the best part. Family re-enrollment is very high. Our kids love having art or music everyday which few schools offer.