CHARTERS MAY MERGE AT WALTER REED (The DC International School, IB Diploma Programme)

[Anonymous]

BTW--I wish you and your child well in the school that best fits your child's needs, but is it really necessary to knock a school that may fit the needs of other children. And I agree that YY is not for everyone, but neither is Deal, Lamb, Latin, etc. for everyone. That's the beauty of choice and opportunities.

Careful there, your smug is showing.

[Anonymous]

YY parent who strongly disagrees. We could use more parents who can see the forest for the trees. DC public schools, both DCPS and charter, have a lamentable way of turning off, and driving out, many of the very parents who would improve them. These are high-SES parents, parents who speak a language of immersion, choosey parents who want to dramatically improve the curriculum and quality of instruction, parents who support G/T programs etc. It's not a happy story.

Come on, most of you stay after 2nd grade because you can't afford privates and/or aren't comfortable with your IB schools, not because YY is so great. I don't see how the school could go wrong in welcoming more Chinese-speaking families. Jeez, I went to a NYC magnet HS where, thankfully, I had lots of Chinese immigrant and ABC classmates.

This is so true. +1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"I did not realize the PARENTS had to be knowledgable and sensitive about the culture of the foreign language their kid is learning at school. My Asian immigrant parents could care less about French, German, Ancient Greek and Latin - the languages their kids learned at school. Seems YY parents are held to a different standard."

So you studied French, German, Ancient Greek or Latin in an immersion setting? American parent from one of the other immersion schools here who was lucky enough to attend a bilingual French-English institution in Ottawa as a kid. Nearly half my classmates spoke French at home, one of the best things about the place. I learned a tremendous amount about Quebecois culture from them, and their parents.

Nobody's arguing that the YY parents are to be held to a "different standard," but having so few native speakers involved does turn off some. Boosters on these threads try to make it sound like it's just a few entitled Chinese posters who aren't happy with the size of the bilingual parent and student group, but I turned YY down for that reason. Moreover, parents at some of the other schools aren't crazy about YY's domination of the DCI founding effort because you folks can come across as unpleasant and myopic.

Get a clue, native speakers are great for an immersion school, even if their culture isn't PC! Many of us believe in 2 lotteries for these schools, and don't think it's impossible that we'll ever get them.

No not an immersion setting but I send DC to YY to learn a language, specifically Mandarin. You can become proficient in a language without your parents knowing, liking to having any interest in the culture and without having ANY bilingual or native speaker peers especially when you start at a young age. Perhaps not bilingual but good enough for the foreign service, major in classics at an Ivy (my brother), etc.

Aside from the question of where all these native/bilingual Mandarin speaking 4 yrs olds (main entry yr is PreK) will come from... Native Mandarin speakers who plan on living in the U.S. want their children to learn English - not the language they left behind - so how do you propose YY find these kids and parents interested in applying? DC's Chinese population is what? 1% most of whom do not speak Mandarin, are not preK age,...

We turned down private schools specifically b/c we wanted Mandarin for DC. It's the only program in DC and met our family's needs. I am familiar with Mandarin programs in NYC where they give preference to ABCs and would not have applied to those for DC. Why? They are not inclusive, too Chinese for us even though we are Asian. We like that YY reflects the city that we live in and is a school that teaches Mandarin mainly to non-Chinese since we are not Chinese.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

BTW--I wish you and your child well in the school that best fits your child's needs, but is it really necessary to knock a school that may fit the needs of other children. And I agree that YY is not for everyone, but neither is Deal, Lamb, Latin, etc. for everyone. That's the beauty of choice and opportunities.

Careful there, your smug is showing.

?

[Anonymous]

Methinks someone saw that line on another posting (I know I have) and has been waiting and waiting to use it. Too bad it didn't make sense this time....

[Anonymous]

YY parent - many of the parents I've met have a connection to China (of Chinese origin, studied the language, lived/worked/studied there). In my experience, this is about 50 percent of the families (not 50 percent of parents as it may only be one parent who has the exposure). Another 25 percent of families have a parent that may have been born overseas or have a very international outlook (studied foreign language/studied/lived/worked abroad but not necessarily in China). I have been impressed by the dedication that I've seen from all families, though. All parents were involved in my child's class. One single mother I met at the "back to school night" who didn't seem to have a connection to China impressed me as she has been bringing her child to Chinese classes at a community center before school started and I think she planned on continuing).

[Anonymous]

Some of these arguments don't really resonate with what I have observed. I know a number of Chinese families residing in DC, and they are really trying to get their kids into Yu Ying, largely because they have the standard problem that many immigrants in the US have. They speak Mandarin at home, but once their kids hit pre-school, the kids switched to English almost entirely. The parents don't feel they can maintain the Mandarin without peer support. I grew up in California, and the weekly heritage language schools that my Asian-American friends attended resulted in about 0% of them actually speaking the language, so I'm not sure my friends regard those as a viable option, and most are in MoCo anyway.

[Anonymous]

Posters are rehashing arguments made in the earlier thread.

YY parents don't seem to understand why the DC Chinese community as a whole isn't drawn to the school. What you're getting are some well-assimilated, high-SES families, mostly residing in Upper NW, for reasons already explored (particularly the lack of a Cantonese-speaking administrator). It's a disconnect the school isn't trying to address and, from the sounds of it, never will - other priorities. Non-Chinese parents don't understand that a firm grounding in another dialect is an excellent foundation for readily learning Mandarin at any stage in life. You can explain this to them, as I did on the earlier thread, without getting through. What those of us who grew up speaking Chinese know is that the main obstacle to Mandarin isn't learning to speak, it's learning to read and write characters, and retaining the knowledge. Most of my Hong Kong relatives didn't learn Mandarin until adulthood, and they speak it pretty well.

The issue now is whether DCI will come off and thrive, adding a good quality public MS to the small number in the District. I'm skeptical partly because YY has a chip on its shoulder. Hard to imagine the parents and administrators playing nicely with the other schools involved. No need for that chip, guys. You can do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I'm skeptical partly because YY has a chip on its shoulder.

*Yup, a chip. On that last thread, I heard Chinese trying to explain where they were coming from, with non-Chinese dismissing their concerns and experiences, although a few sounded open. I didn't hear parents of bilingual children cheering for the school, like Sp speakers did for theirs. I heard non-Chinese claiming that Chinese love YY, or that ethnic bilingualism is irrelevant.

*Maybe we should keep what these immersion charters are doing in perspective. We're talking about 2.5 days a week of language instruction when kids spend more than half their waking time out of school.

*Unless the language of immersion is spoken at home, with a firm committment on the part of adults to teaching it, maybe involving successive language-speaking au pairs (little of this w/the YY crowd), immersion ES instruction only gets a kid so far.

*We're going to see how DCI plays out, but the lack of immersion instruction there is a letdown. When we signed up for YY, we were told that the immersion would run through MS.

*We're left wondering if we might be better off at Deal, Latin, or a private.

[Anonymous]

^^ I remember being told that the YY MS program would probably be "partial immersion" when we came in.

From what's been posted on this thread, it's not clear to me if the DCI curriculum would mean partial immersion, with some classes taught in the target/immersion language (not simply "advanced language classes" teaching grammar, vocubulary etc.) vs. all academic classes in ES. I have a friend with children in a MoCo immersion MS. She tells me that two classes there are taught in the immersion language: language arts and world studies.

Is this the type of curricular model DCI will adopt?

[Anonymous]

Can somebody start a new Basis thread. It seems that when YY and Basis is mentioned all the crazies, doubters, apologists and haters come out. This YY thing has been hashed over and over again.

Does YY have issues, Yes. Are there people out there who have no connection to YY other than DCUM providing their outside input, Yes. Are there insiders in the school who want changes, Yes. Are there members who are both inside and outside the community who wish the charter board would make an exception for immersion schools in regards to admission (at least for older students), Yes. Can the school get better, Yes. Are there people outside the community praying for the schools demise, Yes. Do people who have never lifted a hand to start a charter school or assist a charter school think they can do a better job than YY or DCI, Absofuckinglootly.

[Anonymous]

"Some of these arguments don't really resonate with what I have observed. I know a number of Chinese families residing in DC, and they are really trying to get their kids into Yu Ying, largely because they have the standard problem that many immigrants in the US have. They speak Mandarin at home, but once their kids hit pre-school, the kids switched to English almost entirely. The parents don't feel they can maintain the Mandarin without peer support. I grew up in California, and the weekly heritage language schools that my Asian-American friends attended resulted in about 0% of them actually speaking the language, so I'm not sure my friends regard those as a viable option, and most are in MoCo anyway."

These sound like quite assimilated families. The kids can't switch to English at home if the family won't play ball - mine never did. One reason you're not getting many Chinese speakers applying to YY is because bilingual Metro area Chinese who care that their kids learn the language (most) make their own plans.

In our case, we won't answer our kids in English, don't let them watch American kids TV (only cartoons off satellite TV, or DVDS we get from HK) and host a Cantonese-speaking au pair every year. They get Cantonese-speaking peer support at a heritage school in Rockville on weekends, and will start Mandarin-for-Cantonese-speakers classes there soon. We visit HK annually. If we switch to MoCo schools for MS and HS, they can study Mandarin alongside many other dialect speakers.

We'd be interested in YY if there was a good-sized dialect speaking group there, and a Chinese administrator, but no chance. As far as DCI goes, you will be seeing many more bilingual families coming into the District in the next decade. If it shapes up to be a good school, you may even get a higher % of such families there than at YY. In that case, maybe DCI would let our kids enroll in the advanced (partial immersion?) Mandarin classes, although YY won't allow us to after 2nd grade without lottery admissions.

[Anonymous]

"In that case, maybe DCI would let our kids enroll in the advanced (partial immersion?) Mandarin classes, although YY won't allow us to after 2nd grade without lottery admissions."

Interesting issue that hasn't come up yet, so thanks for raising it. The charter board is stopping bilingual parents/kids from entering special lotteries, with support from some of the immersion school administrators and many parents. But could they stop such kids from enrolling in advanced language classes after they'd lotteried into DCI?

I suspect not. Posters who predict that the board won't be able to prevent DCI from ability grouping, since YY is already doing some, do you think they would stop bilingual/bilerate kids from enrolling in classes designed for the immersion ES graduates? Or would DCI's administration keep the kids out? I suppose the policy would hinge on what sort of screening mechanisms were used for "ability" grouping (should that be language proficiency grouping?).

Basis is saying that it won't replace dropouts with kids who would lottery in, or test-in/demonstrate that they could handle the curriculum of course (e.g. by getting outside prep in MS sciences), a related issue.

[Anonymous]

^ I'd wager that DCI will allow bilingual and biliterate students who lottery in to take advanced language classes after clearing some bar.

Permitting this would support the school's mission/IB program goals but wouldn't be w/out controversy. Most eligible kids would be high-SES, the type with au pairs at home, the type attending pricey summer immersion programs.

There are a lot more native speakers of Spanish, many low-SES, than biliterate in the city.

[Anonymous]

There is no reason for DCI to not allow bilingual kids to take advanced language classes once they lottery in. The non-existence of a screening process for the language charters exists because 1) the charter board requires schools to either a) accept everyone or b) choose a cut off grade to not accept new students and consequently 2) the charters have to choose between possible attrition in the upper grades or making sure that all of the students enrolled have a similar foundation in the target language by the time the get to the upper grades and therefore meet their chartered goal of bilingualism for all students enrolled.

Now this could be controversial if kids that lottery in have no prior language instruction but for the low-SES kids that may already speak for example Spanish (maybe French) or were already enrolled at one of the 4 DCI schools, that wouldn't be an issue. The question is how many low-SES kids without adequate language skills in the target language enroll through a lottery will they be able to catch up and enroll in advanced language classes?