Leaving immersion program mid-year in Kindergarten?

[Anonymous]

Hopefully you already know this but Francis Stevens is in a temporary location this year and next. Probably further afield for you than its West End location. Just something to possibly factor in.

[Anonymous]

I’d stick it out. The key though is getting the full testing ASAP and getting an OG tutor four times a week for one hour ASAP. The school I’ll never provide the type of instruction your child will need.

[Anonymous]

Start fresh after April break. Kids are way more resilient than we think. Make a big effort to initiate play dates so your child can maintain friendships and create new ones at his new school. Why romanticize it? Move forward with the new chapter.
- a teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d stick it out. The key though is getting the full testing ASAP and getting an OG tutor four times a week for one hour ASAP. The school I’ll never provide the type of instruction your child will need.

If your five year old child requires tutoring just to function in class, then the programming isn’t working.

[Anonymous]

Parent of a kid with an IEP here who had to decide for or against Spanish immersion. As others have said, some kids with IEPs do great in Spanish immersion and some do not. Since he's already there, I'd personally wait to get a fuller picture of what the challenges are, talk to the teachers and specialists, and then make a decision--particularly if he's already happy where he is. As another mentioned, support from the IEP team is big and you don't know what the support may be like at the new school (you should do your best to find out before moving, but still...).

Also, moving to a new school with an IEP initiates a 30 day review period. If you get the IEP sorted at Oyster and then move him right after Easter break, you'll end up doing another IEP review before the end of the year. That's a lot of meetings and assessments of your kiddo in a short period of time. I'd say it's better to take things a little more slowly, wait to see what impact any interventions/services have for the rest of the year, and then make an informed choice with all your options over the summer.

Also, I'm assuming if you want to maybe lottery for this year, you've got that to figure out before the lottery closes next month. You've got a lot of shizz going on right now, and managing the education of a special needs kiddo is a marathon, not a sprint. Don't burn yourself out at the beginning. Your kiddo will need need your advocating energy for the next 12+ years. It's ok to pace yourself.

[Anonymous]

OP, is it possible you could get a special placement based on your IEP? If so, I'd hold off until after the IEP is in place to see where they might place you - you can always go to SWWFS down the line by right. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d stick it out. The key though is getting the full testing ASAP and getting an OG tutor four times a week for one hour ASAP. The school I’ll never provide the type of instruction your child will need.

If your five year old child requires tutoring just to function in class, then the programming isn’t working.

Public school programming doesn't generally work for dyslexic students, unfortunately. But I don't think the OP said what her child's disability is.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t make the decision based on missing instruction time. If your kid is happy, I’d leave them as is for the year. kinder instruction is a lot more about social soft skills than anything else.

Good luck with your decision. I hope you find the best school for your family.

[Anonymous]

It is uncommon - but when you meet with the new school - you might be able to repeat K.

You will need to talk to the Principal about it. DCPS in general is very against it - but it can happen.

[Anonymous]

If your kid is generally happy I would wait until next year for the change just so you're not uprooting friendships and you're not adding settling into a new routine to the academic issues. Good luck whatever you decide!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m with PP on sticking with it. One of the big advantages of immersion programs is that their milestones are deferred. My kid is in French in MCPS and is showing signs of dyslexia. They don’t expect immersion kids to read until the end of 2nd grade. So he has all this extra time (he’s in first).

Why would this possibly be a good thing? If your kid has dyslexia, you want intervention pronto. This allows them to shuffle your kid along for another 1.5 years before actually providing services. It would be one thing if you didn't have concerns about dyslexia and so didn't want to up the pressure... but you do have concerns... so you really need to up the pressure!

[Anonymous]

^^^ I would not rely on phonics or dyslexia intervention from DCPS. It will be inadequate. This is the case in FCPS and MCPS as well. You need to ask them to do everything they can but also seek outside tutoring. No matter what getting a full testing panel outside of school is key. Only then will the interventions be appropriately targeted.

All this to say, it may be more about getting the diagnosis and outside supports than changing the school.

If you do not feel comfortable supporting in bilingual school or no one at home speaks the target language, likely no point in sticking it out. Otherwise you may want to focus on getting the outside supports in place and then switching schools. All depends on your bandwidth and personal preferences.

[Anonymous]

DC SPED educator of two decades here - DO NOT switch schools before the IEP process is completed. At the new school they will monitor your child for 30 school days before deciding if they will even consider moving ahead for services because the child new to them. Your prior focumentation means nothing to the new school. Since you’re coming from a language immersion they’ll want even more than 30 days so if there’s an indication of the need for services after the initial 30 day review, they will place your child in the pre-referral process which can take up to 60 additional days. The goal of the pre-referral process is to see if strategies fix any issues thus not necessitating SPED services/an IEP at all.

You may not need an IEP but if it turns out you do, moving schools will delay appropriate services and their LRE by at least 6 months. And that’s if the new school is on their SPED game. Stay and start the process now. Write a letter of your desire to move forward with testing if you need to speed up the process. You can still lottery for next year while the process plays out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child is in kindergarten at Oyster Adams which is 90% Spanish immersion. It has become clear that he has some significant learning challenges and isn't making academic progress. We have initiated the evaluation process - the school has been great so far with offering assistance. I expect we will have an IEP in place by mid-March. I think its pretty clear we will need to move him to a monolingual program - if our family spoke Spanish at home, it might be worth pushing through but I'm not going to make my child's life more complicated just for the principal of Spanish immersion.

Child is happy and enjoying school, actively participating in class. He has no objection to the instruction language being in Spanish - he goes with the flow. I'm not big on academics at this age, but I do wonder if we should move them to our in-boundary English only program (School without Walls at Francis Stevens) after the April break or just let them finish out the year. I think he would make faster progress in an English-only environment, given the challenges. It is almost 3 full months of instruction which feels like a lot at this age.

I will of course discuss with teachers, counselors, therapists, etc at both schools, but thought to get some random parents' opinions on what they would do!

The 1st step is to be eligibility - has this already occurred?
After eligibility, the IEP needs to be in place within 30 days.

[Anonymous]

OP here - We were never going to switch until the evaluation is complete and an IEP is in place. And it sounds like we should wait even longer to ensure things go as smoothly as possible - we can wait for next year which also allows us to see how the lottery plays out. (Ironically he got into what is now my top choice via lottery for K but then we wound up living inbound for OA so I declined it. Kicking myself!)

I'm already looking at outside tutors to supplement - reading lots of threads on that and consulting people IRL.

Thank you to everyone for their input! It was helpful to see outsiders' takes on the issue.