OK, I will start this thread - Sela

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once the families figure out that there is absolutely no discussion about Sela joining the DCI consortium it will get worse. The school (through Lody) has promoted the DCI connection, but it simply doesn't exist. I asked at an information session. They have never met to discuss this with the DCI leaders and the DCI leaders say it is not something they are considering at this point in time.

This drove me nuts last year. I heard 2 different Sela staff say this at the Expo last year and supporters here said it repeatedly here too. Then I asked DCI staff and they said "We're just trying to get open; no discussions on other languages have been entertained so far". I felt like it was said by Sela in a deceptively certain way, but they must have gotten that feedback because they stopped saying it after awhile (or said "We're hopeful" instead of "The plan is for us to then join DCI")

I didn't feel this way at all. This is a brand new school only up to 1st grade, they have time to enter into discussions about joining DCI. It seemed perfectly clear that Sela would naturally evolve into a DCI feeder. And why wouldn't Sela be eligible to join the feeder if the school was successful? Wouldn't make any sense for it to be an outlier or rejected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So what if the school had to offer free after care and free immersion is great! Those 2 items alone will draw attention to any school! If it were Spanish, French or Mandarin then people would have been all over it, right? But because it's Hebrew people shy'd away, yes? I personally like the small classroom sizes. If I wanted my child in a school with 25 kids in the class I would have went DCPS so the numbers don't bother me. Because it's Hebrew immersion they will have to "prove" themselves to be a great school that is where leadership comes in. It may not be the hot ticket for lottery choices at the moment because it's the unknown factor in play for immersion. When sending your child to an immersion school it's to utilize other parts of the brain that would otherwise not be used in a traditional school, a child that learns a language at an early age can always learn another no matter what the language is, the immersion piece is what matters. The demaand will come but proving themselves has to happen first just as it happened for all other immersion schools in DC....

I think you're missing 2 points, a small one and a big one.

Small: No question, any school offering free aftercare and language immersion sounds exciting to most parents. The problems are: 1) Sela always said it was free for this year and unclear how long after this year they'd be able to swing it. 2) My point above is that without the free aftercare and the fact that if one was dying for language immersion but shut out everywhere else, a lot of people enrolled at Sela last year who were not as much "choosing Sela" as they were "ending up in Sela for now". There is a difference, and from a sustainability point of view, it's an important difference. That goes to the big point you're missing: Big: You want in your first year to prove your school, yes that's true for all new schools. But all the other new schools that have been approved in the last 5 years and are still running today, they started with an idea that even on paper was predictably "popular" if the school could back up the proposal with actually doing what they said. That is not the case with Sela. Hebrew immersion is not an idea that on paper has overwhelming support or popularity. Spanish? Yes. Chinese? Yes. Montessori? Yes. Expeditionary or Green? Probably not alone, but as a pairing with one of the others, it's a bonus for many families. But Hebrew as the target language? Where is the predictable popularity of that in DC? That's a sincere question, I'm not criticizing it, but the numbers or usefulness in the US or world are simply not there for Hebrew as a language choice, and certainly not as compared to the 3 that exist today in DC or proposed: Spanish, French, Chinese and (proposed) Arabic. The job oppourtunities and worldwide populations that speak those languages are very significant. That is the biggest obstacle of all for Sela, no matter how good the school or Administration is.

And the numbers will be tell the full when looking at re-enrollment and new enrollment. That will speak louder to the above issues than anything else anyone can say, and predict the near-future success or demise of the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once the families figure out that there is absolutely no discussion about Sela joining the DCI consortium it will get worse. The school (through Lody) has promoted the DCI connection, but it simply doesn't exist. I asked at an information session. They have never met to discuss this with the DCI leaders and the DCI leaders say it is not something they are considering at this point in time.

This drove me nuts last year. I heard 2 different Sela staff say this at the Expo last year and supporters here said it repeatedly here too. Then I asked DCI staff and they said "We're just trying to get open; no discussions on other languages have been entertained so far". I felt like it was said by Sela in a deceptively certain way, but they must have gotten that feedback because they stopped saying it after awhile (or said "We're hopeful" instead of "The plan is for us to then join DCI")

I didn't feel this way at all. This is a brand new school only up to 1st grade, they have time to enter into discussions about joining DCI. It seemed perfectly clear that Sela would naturally evolve into a DCI feeder. And why wouldn't Sela be eligible to join the feeder if the school was successful? Wouldn't make any sense for it to be an outlier or rejected.

There is nothing in the world wrong with stating that as a hope for the future. There is everything in the world wrong with stating it as a foregone conclusion or an expected outcome, when DCI founders are reporting that they've never had the conversation and are not thinking about other languages apart from the current feeders right now. It is false advertising to say anything other than "And we're excited about DCI and hopeful that in the future Sela would feed to DCI". Anything about "We expect" or "It's highly likely" is false advertising and a set up for really pissed off parents in the future if it doesn't come to pass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They still say it enough (or enough Sela parents say it as though they've heard it from leadership) that it feels as though they're trying to sell potential parents on a connection that isn't there.

That's gonna come back to bite them in a big way. That is not good.

[Anonymous]

exactly. and it's not being said as, "we hope" but instead, "we expect that Sela will eventually become part of DCI". And that simply is not true. The DCI folks are not buying into the idea of Hebrew as a viable offering--or in trying to get highly qualified secondary teachers to teach in it. i don't see it happening ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:exactly. and it's not being said as, "we hope" but instead, "we expect that Sela will eventually become part of DCI". And that simply is not true. The DCI folks are not buying into the idea of Hebrew as a viable offering--or in trying to get highly qualified secondary teachers to teach in it. i don't see it happening ever.

Wow, that's actually very uncharter school like. If that's true about DCI then it's really negative and elitist. -- sorry, Hebrew is not good enough for our exclusive language club.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:exactly. and it's not being said as, "we hope" but instead, "we expect that Sela will eventually become part of DCI". And that simply is not true. The DCI folks are not buying into the idea of Hebrew as a viable offering--or in trying to get highly qualified secondary teachers to teach in it. i don't see it happening ever.

Wow, that's actually very uncharter school like. If that's true about DCI then it's really negative and elitist. -- sorry, Hebrew is not good enough for our exclusive language club.

You are hearing what you want to hear in order to justify what you want to believe. No one said "it's not good enough for DCI's club" and according to DCI, it's not even anything they've even discussed with Sela. But if the day comes when DCI does consider other languages, they would be hard-pressed to makes case for the viability of a Hebrew track. If very few people registered and few will return to Sela, that will speak for itself about viability. So will the number of common lottery apps as compared to the other bilingual schools (even accounting for this being Sela's 2nd year).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:exactly. and it's not being said as, "we hope" but instead, "we expect that Sela will eventually become part of DCI". And that simply is not true. The DCI folks are not buying into the idea of Hebrew as a viable offering--or in trying to get highly qualified secondary teachers to teach in it. i don't see it happening ever.

Wow, that's actually very uncharter school like. If that's true about DCI then it's really negative and elitist. -- sorry, Hebrew is not good enough for our exclusive language club.

You are hearing what you want to hear in order to justify what you want to believe. No one said "it's not good enough for DCI's club" and according to DCI, it's not even anything they've even discussed with Sela. But if the day comes when DCI does consider other languages, they would be hard-pressed to makes case for the viability of a Hebrew track. If very few people registered and few will return to Sela, that will speak for itself about viability. So will the number of common lottery apps as compared to the other bilingual schools (even accounting for this being Sela's 2nd year).

Actually I'm not hearing what I want to hear, our family isn't likely to be here for 6th grade so while I would like Sela to survive, it's makes no difference to our family.

What I want you to hear that if what you are saying is even remotely true, or are speaking on behalf of the school, then DCI should hire a new PR firm because you are spinning it right into damage control mode. Cheers!

[Anonymous]

Sela is new only up to 1st grade when the time comes I'm sure Sela will have talks with DCI or even extend the grades at their school if necessary. But unless your on the board at DCI or Sela you have no idea what is in the pipeline 3 years away. Stop bashing the school, it's hard enough to find free and quality schools in DC as is... they have issues yes but instead of saying what their not how about wishing them success. These are kids that deserve a good school and regardless if they are excepted into DCI or not at least the kids experienced immersion... something a lot of dcps schools would never have exposed them to...

[Anonymous]

Well said I couldn't agree more!

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Well said I couldn't agree more!

It looks like the SELA sock puppet is back. Unsurprisingly, she can't agree more with herself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:exactly. and it's not being said as, "we hope" but instead, "we expect that Sela will eventually become part of DCI". And that simply is not true. The DCI folks are not buying into the idea of Hebrew as a viable offering--or in trying to get highly qualified secondary teachers to teach in it. i don't see it happening ever.

Wow, that's actually very uncharter school like. If that's true about DCI then it's really negative and elitist. -- sorry, Hebrew is not good enough for our exclusive language club.

HOw is that "uncharter school like"? I thought charter schools were all about choice and free market. Free market says Hebrew is not viable at DCI, so out it goes.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well said I couldn't agree more!

It looks like the SELA sock puppet is back. Unsurprisingly, she can't agree more with herself.

Wow - again? I would have thought that she had learned her lesson when you called her out last time.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well said I couldn't agree more!

It looks like the SELA sock puppet is back. Unsurprisingly, she can't agree more with herself.

That does such a disservice to Sela. Some people never learn. And honestly, even if we didn't know it was a sock puppet, the "I am even going to take posts that wish the school well and engage in a civil discussion about it and turn it into "basing the school" and "elitist" is even more damaging than the sock-puppet thing. If I'd put Sela down in the lottery, I'd be regretting it big time now between the old changes, new cchanges, and this person doing way to much damage in their efforts to support it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:exactly. and it's not being said as, "we hope" but instead, "we expect that Sela will eventually become part of DCI". And that simply is not true. The DCI folks are not buying into the idea of Hebrew as a viable offering--or in trying to get highly qualified secondary teachers to teach in it. i don't see it happening ever.

Wow, that's actually very uncharter school like. If that's true about DCI then it's really negative and elitist. -- sorry, Hebrew is not good enough for our exclusive language club.

You are hearing what you want to hear in order to justify what you want to believe. No one said "it's not good enough for DCI's club" and according to DCI, it's not even anything they've even discussed with Sela. But if the day comes when DCI does consider other languages, they would be hard-pressed to makes case for the viability of a Hebrew track. If very few people registered and few will return to Sela, that will speak for itself about viability. So will the number of common lottery apps as compared to the other bilingual schools (even accounting for this being Sela's 2nd year).

Actually I'm not hearing what I want to hear, our family isn't likely to be here for 6th grade so while I would like Sela to survive, it's makes no difference to our family.

What I want you to hear that if what you are saying is even remotely true, or are speaking on behalf of the school, then DCI should hire a new PR firm because you are spinning it right into damage control mode. Cheers!

YOu're either purposefully mis-hearing or displaying very poor reading comprehension. No one here is claiming to represent DCI. Everyone is either speaking of what they know directly (the unhappy current Sela parent who resurrected this thread) or from what they heard at Sela and DCI info sessions. You are free to take and leave any parts of that given this is an anonymous forum (which you're taking advantage of yourself by pretending to be someone who agrees with yourself). But I don't know how much more plain the bottom line can be: Sela is doing itself and it's current a prospective parents a disservice if they are still talking of feeding into DCI in the future as anything other than something they hope will happen. Anything more certain is a gross misrepresentation, until DCI themselves say it's seriously in consideration or they are specifically considering Hebrew for the future. DCI has been completely non-committal at the sessions I've gone to about any other specific future languages. If Sela is saying or implying otherwise, that's a big bad parent blow up just waiting to happen.