Any New Immersion Parents Worried that the program might get dismantled due to budget cuts?

[Anonymous]

A little but I hope not.

The ESL thing is bull though. Most of the kids already speak English and the few that comprise the "native speakers" are mostly in district anyway and would need to be served by that school as it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the second time I've seen immersion on the chopping block, and I hear from other parents that it comes up every 4-5 years. I'm not totally worried because my youngest kid would be grandfathers (one really hopes) and like other posters said, it is a good program. I do remember a few years ago the Fairfax Flags group brought out some really big supporters - you'd be surprised who's kids when through the program and which agencies love the kids from the program since they can pick up languages very easily. I will lobby to support immersion.

What I don't understand is why everyone supports AAP so much when the immersion kids end up "ahead" of the AAP kids at 7th grade. Immersion kids take language I in 7th grade and can test into Honors Algebra. The AAP kids can only test into Honors Algebra. AAP doesn't matter after 6th grade, but immersion makes a difference the whole 12 years.

Source for this? I'd like to know where you get your info that; (1)Immersion kids are more likely than AAP to place into 7th grade algeBra (being allowed to take the test does not equal placing, and this seems unlikely and (2) that immersion kids are more likely to end up passing AP/IB in their target language in HS (seems more possible). Also, my uderstanding is that MSs were moving toward allowing all students to take Zlangyage I in 7th (instead of the A/B thing), whether they were immersion or not. Certainly in out MS very, very few of the

[Anonymous]

^^ immersion kids take 7th Algebra I honors. But feel free to point me to data showing that I'm wrong.

[Anonymous]

Algebra I in 7, not Zlangyage. And other iPhone typos.

[Anonymous]

My kid passed AP Zlangyage as a 7th grader. He was that good after finishing immersion at the elementary level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I admit I'm a worrier, so maybe this is just my nerves talking. But, I keep hearing bits and pieces here and there from parents worried about the ending of the immersion program due to budget cuts. It costs $1.6 Mil (not sure why, but that's what the budget report said), so there's a reason to cut it or severely trim it. I worry about having made the sacrifice to leave our neighborhood school for immersion and then it's all cut. Does anyone know with more information how serious this might actually be?

Immersion schools get extra staff. I think it's 1 teacher and an aid and is supposed to balance out the attrition aka lessen impacts on class sizes. What really happens is not pretty. If you start with 27 in the program and it reaches less than 15 just how many do you think are in the classroom? How do the numbers balance out? It drains resources from regular education. This article explains the drain:
http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/news/2013/feb/05/french-immersion-herndon-elementary-jeopardy/

Immersion schools fight to not do splits or combo grade classes so everybody suffers. Spanish immersion is another tool for esol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I admit I'm a worrier, so maybe this is just my nerves talking. But, I keep hearing bits and pieces here and there from parents worried about the ending of the immersion program due to budget cuts. It costs $1.6 Mil (not sure why, but that's what the budget report said), so there's a reason to cut it or severely trim it. I worry about having made the sacrifice to leave our neighborhood school for immersion and then it's all cut. Does anyone know with more information how serious this might actually be?

Immersion schools get extra staff. I think it's 1 teacher and an aid and is supposed to balance out the attrition aka lessen impacts on class sizes. What really happens is not pretty. If you start with 27 in the program and it reaches less than 15 just how many do you think are in the classroom? How do the numbers balance out? It drains resources from regular education. This article explains the drain:
http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/news/2013/feb/05/french-immersion-herndon-elementary-jeopardy/

Immersion schools fight to not do splits or combo grade classes so everybody suffers. Spanish immersion is another tool for esol.

Even if the first half of your post was true none of it supports your ESOL claim. The cap of native speakers is 10%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I admit I'm a worrier, so maybe this is just my nerves talking. But, I keep hearing bits and pieces here and there from parents worried about the ending of the immersion program due to budget cuts. It costs $1.6 Mil (not sure why, but that's what the budget report said), so there's a reason to cut it or severely trim it. I worry about having made the sacrifice to leave our neighborhood school for immersion and then it's all cut. Does anyone know with more information how serious this might actually be?

Immersion schools get extra staff. I think it's 1 teacher and an aid and is supposed to balance out the attrition aka lessen impacts on class sizes. What really happens is not pretty. If you start with 27 in the program and it reaches less than 15 just how many do you think are in the classroom? How do the numbers balance out? It drains resources from regular education. This article explains the drain:
http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/news/2013/feb/05/french-immersion-herndon-elementary-jeopardy/

Immersion schools fight to not do splits or combo grade classes so everybody suffers. Spanish immersion is another tool for esol.

Even if the first half of your post was true none of it supports your ESOL claim. The cap of native speakers is 10%.

Then why does FCPS list it as 50% ? http://www.fcps.edu/BaileysES/SpanishImmersion.html "Students who participate in this program come from one of two language backgrounds: half of the students in the class come from families whose native language is English, and the other half from families whose native language is Spanish"

[Anonymous]

http://www.fcps.edu/HerndonES/academics/immersion_info.html

At the school Spanish dual immersion is 50% English and the other 50% Spanish or Korean. "Half of the students in the class come from families whose native language is English, and the other half from families whose native language is either Spanish or Korean."

[Anonymous]

Baileys is run and managed very differently from the other immersion programs. Even the lottery is different from the General FCPS a immersion lottery. There is dual immersion... Usually just in Kindgarten, and only at very few schools, which does use a 50-50 split of native Spanish speakers and native English speakers. Partial immersion, which makes up the vast majority of the FCPS aimmersion program, is run through a lottery and there is not a quota for ESOL students. In fact, PP is correct that ESOL students are capped in the partial immersion programs.

Some of the concerns about cost and resources are understandable and based in fact.... Even the FCPS Budget tool lists a cost associated with the program. However, using the argument that immersion is just a cover for ESOL students completely undermines your credibility as an informed person. It just isn't true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course it's on the chopping block. It affects far fewer kids than AAP, and the extra overhead is the same: administrative only- not instructional. Both involve allowing kids to choose a different school for not good reason & immersion encourages ESL kids to come (or so say opponents). There would be He** to pay if they eliminated AAP Centers, but kept immersion.

AAP uses the following resources that immersion doesn't:

Teacher time filling out GBRS
Time and cost of administering CoGat (or whatever it's called these days) and NNAT
Time of staff to review the paperwork of potential students and to choose who gets into AAP
Time of staff to review the appeal students' paperwork

I'm not saying there shouldn't be AAP or that there wouldn't be a great backlash if it was eliminated, but to say that the extra overhead is the same as in immersion is simply not true. Selecting kids for the immersion program is a far simpler process.

And I say that as an AAP parent, not as an immersion parent.

[Anonymous]

Those screening costs will not go away even if they eliminate centers.

[Anonymous]

They will still need to do some screening. Gifted education can't be ignored totally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They will still need to do some screening. Gifted education can't be ignored totally.

Even if you seriously cut back to the top 1-2%, or pulls out/push in, all those screening costs would still be there. Under VA law, FCPS must offer some form of gifted education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the second time I've seen immersion on the chopping block, and I hear from other parents that it comes up every 4-5 years. I'm not totally worried because my youngest kid would be grandfathers (one really hopes) and like other posters said, it is a good program. I do remember a few years ago the Fairfax Flags group brought out some really big supporters - you'd be surprised who's kids when through the program and which agencies love the kids from the program since they can pick up languages very easily. I will lobby to support immersion.

What I don't understand is why everyone supports AAP so much when the immersion kids end up "ahead" of the AAP kids at 7th grade. Immersion kids take language I in 7th grade and can test into Honors Algebra. The AAP kids can only test into Honors Algebra. AAP doesn't matter after 6th grade, but immersion makes a difference the whole 12 years.

Source for this? I'd like to know where you get your info that; (1)Immersion kids are more likely than AAP to place into 7th grade algeBra (being allowed to take the test does not equal placing, and this seems unlikely and (2) that immersion kids are more likely to end up passing AP/IB in their target language in HS (seems more possible). Also, my uderstanding is that MSs were moving toward allowing all students to take Zlangyage I in 7th (instead of the A/B thing), whether they were immersion or not. Certainly in out MS very, very few of the

Did you actually read what was written? Immersion kids are eligible for two high school classes as 7th grades, one with guaranteed placement (the language class). Math placement for 7th grade is based on SOL scores and Iowa scores. It didn't say all immersion kids would place in Algebra. Parents who have kids who qualify for level 4 at 3rd grade are fools for leaving immersion. Parents who have kids who are immersion and not level 4 qualified will still enter high school with 2 high school credits. AAP kids are not guaranteed any high school classes at 7th grade.

At our local middle school last year there are 22ish kids in the honors plus track (which excludes math placement. Honors plus is AAP at 7th/8th grade). 35ish kids in language one and there were two classes of Honors Algebra. three of the 22 kids were from the immersion school. I don't know who was in the two algebra classes, but assume at least 35-40 kids, so it wasn't limited to AAP kids. But, the kids "gossiped" the most about a few kids who left immersion at 3rd grade to go AAP and didn't even land in Algebra (since they had to listen to the last 4 years from one particular kid being "smarter" and at the center school, I let them go as a lesson in bragging).