Mundo Verde is the Best!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a previous poster noted that in fact the problem kids HAVE been and MV for some time and are not new to the school.

That may be true for 2nd grade, but not for 1st grade; in 1st some of the problem kids are new and some are not. Kids talk and my child tells me who gets in trouble constantly and they are new (in 1st grade).

And I forgot to add that they didn't speak Spanish before enrolling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can a current parent remark more on the aftercare program? We heard it was great too. What disruptive behavior are we talking about?

There is no abnormally disruptive behavior that I know about in the k and under crowd. I am not sure how the issues discussed above play out in aftercare. I would assume that if the same kids were in aftercare, the issues would be similar in both regular school and aftercare, but I don't actually know who any of the kids at issue are, if they are in aftercare, or how that works. Aftercare is generally mostly in Spanish though and a little more free wheeling than a typical school day, so maybe the issues are heightened. I really don't know.

This is not an issue for my child's aftercare experience (1st grade) but I suspect as a PP stated that the same problem kids in the 2 classrooms are also in aftercare. I also believe that some teachers are naturally better at managing kids and others need more support. It doesn't come natural for people (consider many parenting experiences) and if you don't have kids yourself and have 18-20 at the same time and 3-4 are constant problems it has to be overwhelming. Baptism by fire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^That is a real good point about kids switching schools so often. I have wondered that reading this board, kids not in school yet, but i have to imagine the kids switching 3 times in elementary school cannot be helpful.

Why do the immersion schools accept kids without the language skills after 2nd grade? They have the choice to simply no longer accept new kids, correct? I think they need to consider the downside to the school community as a whole of adding kids who cannot understand the target language.

Their charter does not allow them to stop accepting kids because they do not have the language back ground. Their charter is written to accept child up to grade .

I specified "no longer accepting new kids" as the choice above since they cannot select kids based on language knowledge, sorry i wasn't more clear but yes i see your point. Clearly YY and LAMB do it, so maybe other immersion schools should update their charter as it does not do the incoming kid nor the existing kids any favors to through them into a 50/50 model without the background.

Even they are going to be accepting new students in middle school though, right?

But for DCI they will have a track and special classes for the kids, so they are not thrown in a spanish-language class with kids who are already proficient.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can a current parent remark more on the aftercare program? We heard it was great too. What disruptive behavior are we talking about?

There is no abnormally disruptive behavior that I know about in the k and under crowd. I am not sure how the issues discussed above play out in aftercare. I would assume that if the same kids were in aftercare, the issues would be similar in both regular school and aftercare, but I don't actually know who any of the kids at issue are, if they are in aftercare, or how that works. Aftercare is generally mostly in Spanish though and a little more free wheeling than a typical school day, so maybe the issues are heightened. I really don't know.

This is not an issue for my child's aftercare experience (1st grade) but I suspect as a PP stated that the same problem kids in the 2 classrooms are also in aftercare. I also believe that some teachers are naturally better at managing kids and others need more support. It doesn't come natural for people (consider many parenting experiences) and if you don't have kids yourself and have 18-20 at the same time and 3-4 are constant problems it has to be overwhelming. Baptism by fire.

then they should have more support for those teachers - I am not a natural disciplinarian and sometimes my kids try to get away with murder because of it. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have somewhere to turn and lean on. Structure is good for kids and they KNOW when they can get away with things, they're smart.

[Anonymous]

I dont discount the behavior issues, but my concern is really about the quality of the education. Are the kids adequately challenged?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can a current parent remark more on the aftercare program? We heard it was great too. What disruptive behavior are we talking about?

There is no abnormally disruptive behavior that I know about in the k and under crowd. I am not sure how the issues discussed above play out in aftercare. I would assume that if the same kids were in aftercare, the issues would be similar in both regular school and aftercare, but I don't actually know who any of the kids at issue are, if they are in aftercare, or how that works. Aftercare is generally mostly in Spanish though and a little more free wheeling than a typical school day, so maybe the issues are heightened. I really don't know.

This is not an issue for my child's aftercare experience (1st grade) but I suspect as a PP stated that the same problem kids in the 2 classrooms are also in aftercare. I also believe that some teachers are naturally better at managing kids and others need more support. It doesn't come natural for people (consider many parenting experiences) and if you don't have kids yourself and have 18-20 at the same time and 3-4 are constant problems it has to be overwhelming. Baptism by fire.

then they should have more support for those teachers - I am not a natural disciplinarian and sometimes my kids try to get away with murder because of it. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have somewhere to turn and lean on. Structure is good for kids and they KNOW when they can get away with things, they're smart.

Agreed. I believe this is part of the solution. Again, this is a known problem that is not being ignored.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I dont discount the behavior issues, but my concern is really about the quality of the education. Are the kids adequately challenged?

Not while the teacher is focusing on the disruptive children.

[Anonymous]

This highlights, however, some of the concerns I have about charters like MV, CM and IT, and Lee, for that matter: It seems like the charters tend to get young teachers who have less than five years classroom experience. Why is that? That cannot be a positive thing. Do any highly desirable charters have teachers that have more than a few years' experience?

[Anonymous]

Yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This highlights, however, some of the concerns I have about charters like MV, CM and IT, and Lee, for that matter: It seems like the charters tend to get young teachers who have less than five years classroom experience. Why is that? That cannot be a positive thing. Do any highly desirable charters have teachers that have more than a few years' experience?

From what I know my own research and discussing with friends at the schools you mentioned, in general no; although I believe the master teachers at IT have more experience in general. These charters don't have the money to pay salaries for veteran/experienced teachers. So far at MV we have been lucky that for the most part (we had one bad teacher in year 1 that left) we have had lead teachers with more than a few years experience (although not veteran status) and seem to be naturally good classroom managers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont discount the behavior issues, but my concern is really about the quality of the education. Are the kids adequately challenged?

Not while the teacher is focusing on the disruptive children.

I would agree if that was our experience--but I believe my child is challenged; however, my child's teachers don't have to deal with the problem kids discussed earlier in the thread.

[Anonymous]

How would MV be for a sensitive boy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How would MV be for a sensitive boy?

It depends on what you mean by sensitive, but I'd tend to say not great without knowing more

[Anonymous]

Why would you say that, PP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would you say that, PP?

IMHO kids are left to work out problems on their own a lot, depending on the teacher they have - which can especially hard for sensitive kids who need a little extra help and support socially