Bilingual Kids in Language Immersion ES Programs, Which Programs Have Many & Strive to Attract Them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure LAMB can get sneaky and look at a child's last name or in some cases their first name and can see who may be of Hispanic origin. In some mysterious way they may be able to weed out others. This is just a thought and this is why child child's name is hyphenated since her dad is of Hispanic decent.

The hyphen in her name doesn't increase the likelihood her name will be drawn. There's no weight to the name added for additional letters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lamb parent who does care, really cares, among many others.

I turned down a YY PreK spot. Strange school where most of the admins don't even speak the target language, a bilingual kid is hard to find and, yes, few parents seem to care. If DC Charter moves to revoke Lamb's charter, which won't surprise me, many of us here say bring it on. There are dual-immersion public school Spanish programs in this very city with 2 lotteries at a time when the lines between DCPC and DCPS are starting to blur. If DC Charter doesn't want us, maybe DCPS does and we'd be better off under their auspices long-term. Our admins feel strongly enough about keeping the percentage of native speakers high, with parental support, that they don't fear the future.

Wow. Even though I will never make a final decision about applying or accepting a slot based solely on what people say on DCUM, I am now starting to understand parents getting a bad vibe about a school. Usually that school is YY here... But more and more for me this is true of LAMB. Between the "go cheaters, go!" Cheering and the absolute cluelessness of saying maybe LAMB would be better off as a DCPS, that starts a poor impression of LAMB parents.

Not that it really matters, since we have the old snowball/hell chance of getting in, but if I ended up with choices I'd be hoping for another great option than only getting to choose LAMB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lamb parent who does care, really cares, among many others.

I turned down a YY PreK spot. Strange school where most of the admins don't even speak the target language, a bilingual kid is hard to find and, yes, few parents seem to care. If DC Charter moves to revoke Lamb's charter, which won't surprise me, many of us here say bring it on. There are dual-immersion public school Spanish programs in this very city with 2 lotteries at a time when the lines between DCPC and DCPS are starting to blur. If DC Charter doesn't want us, maybe DCPS does and we'd be better off under their auspices long-term. Our admins feel strongly enough about keeping the percentage of native speakers high, with parental support, that they don't fear the future.

LAMB & YY & MV don't fear the future either. THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE TWO LOTTERIES. Only DCPS is allowed to do that. Oh God, but you are dense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As long as you're part of the system, you have to play by the rules.

Spare us your holier than thou rant. Get back to me at AP language test time and college acceptances season. That's when our FARMs Spanish and English speakers are going to shine.

There's a morally superior choice to cheating. It's not "holier than thou" to point that out, and you are ethically challenged if you don't realize that.

I hope your FARMs student do shine - for their sakes. I can't imagine who'd be threatened by that, though. I know we're not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Honestly, most parents who already have their kids in the immersion charter of their choice don't care. After all, their kids are already in.
Speak for yourself, YY mom or dad. Here at Stokes we don't appreciate how tough dcpc makes it for us to harness the bilingual inputs our school needs to offer high quality programs. In the suburbs, native speakers don't end up on a waiting lists running to 1,000 names for immersion programs! MD & VA do not need 2 lotteries like we do. Just because my kid is IN doesn't mean that I've lost my vision for 2-way immersion. I'll leave that to the YY boosters. They can be relied on to reject cultural inputs that don't come from nervous teachers on 1-year work visas.



She is speaking for herself, huffy-Stokes-parent.

In the same vein, maybe you should consider speaking for your own school, not YY? Since you're not there, and don't know the school or us. Nobody's rejecting cultural inputs, and no teachers are nervous. Do you believe everything that you read on anonymous fora on the internet? The vast majority of YY parents would love 2-way immersion, but we can't change the law any more than you can. Why the chip on your shoulder? Is it because Stokes is the least desirable of the immersion charter schools? What we can do, is start a language MS/HS that your children can attend. You're welcome.

[Anonymous]

Of course this YY parent would like more two-way immersion...don't know of any YY parent who would be against this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: She is speaking for herself, huffy-Stokes-parent.

In the same vein, maybe you should consider speaking for your own school, not YY? Since you're not there, and don't know the school or us. Nobody's rejecting cultural inputs, and no teachers are nervous. Do you believe everything that you read on anonymous fora on the internet? The vast majority of YY parents would love 2-way immersion, but we can't change the law any more than you can. Why the chip on your shoulder? Is it because Stokes is the least desirable of the immersion charter schools? What we can do, is start a language MS/HS that your children can attend. You're welcome.

New poster and outsider. Love 2-way immersion? Well, that's not exactly the impression you folks give on DCUM. The Spanish immersion parents, yes. I've been through many YY threads, mostly from S. China, were I work for the USG, wondering if my half-ethnic, Mandarin-speaking toddler would be at home there on my next DC post. Correct me if I'm wrong (like OP) but the undercurrent of resentment and dislike of local Chinese immigrants sounds strong. The only bilingual family we knew at YY dropped out, happy to land IB. Those Cantonese speakers can be really annoying, granted, knowing my in-laws....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: She is speaking for herself, huffy-Stokes-parent.

In the same vein, maybe you should consider speaking for your own school, not YY? Since you're not there, and don't know the school or us. Nobody's rejecting cultural inputs, and no teachers are nervous. Do you believe everything that you read on anonymous fora on the internet? The vast majority of YY parents would love 2-way immersion, but we can't change the law any more than you can. Why the chip on your shoulder? Is it because Stokes is the least desirable of the immersion charter schools? What we can do, is start a language MS/HS that your children can attend. You're welcome.

New poster and outsider. Love 2-way immersion? Well, that's not exactly the impression you folks give on DCUM. The Spanish immersion parents, yes. I've been through many YY threads, mostly from S. China, were I work for the USG, wondering if my half-ethnic, Mandarin-speaking toddler would be at home there on my next DC post. Correct me if I'm wrong (like OP) but the undercurrent of resentment and dislike of local Chinese immigrants sounds strong. The only bilingual family we knew at YY dropped out, happy to land IB. Those Cantonese speakers can be really annoying, granted, knowing my in-laws....

You're mistaking accusations against YY parents with the opinions of YY parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course this YY parent would like more two-way immersion...don't know of any YY parent who would be against this.

This YY parent knows boatloads of others who would be against two-way if it hurt their chances of being admitted, which of course it would unless the school and DCPC were doing something radically different. They might not say so, but they wouldn't support dual immersion. They just want a decent school (better than most IB on Capitol Hill, in Petworth, or wherever) where their kid learns more than a little of a foreign language. They get that and they're satisfied. You are an unusually sophisticated and Chinese-minded YY parent to want more!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course this YY parent would like more two-way immersion...don't know of any YY parent who would be against this.

This YY parent knows boatloads of others who would be against two-way if it hurt their chances of being admitted, which of course it would unless the school and DCPC were doing something radically different. They might not say so, but they wouldn't support dual immersion. They just want a decent school (better than most IB on Capitol Hill, in Petworth, or wherever) where their kid learns more than a little of a foreign language. They get that and they're satisfied. You are an unusually sophisticated and Chinese-minded YY parent to want more!

You're saying that parents whose children have already been admitted are afraid that they'll be shut out? How is that possible?

[Anonymous]

You're mistaking accusations against YY parents with the opinions of YY parents.

OK, maybe I am. Doesn't change the fact that your school community doesn't appear to roll out the welcome mat to an immigrant group that struggles to fit in and understand race and class politics in America. My immigrant in-laws have no clear conception of why most poor AA families can't send their kids to top colleges, as they did, although they would have been a FARMs family in the 70s and 80s if they hadn't been too proud to accept the help. YY would surely have more Chinese-speaking students and parents, whatever the law says, if the school made a point of giving prospective bilingual parents the impression that you wanted them. When we attended an info night (purposely timed a US visit to coincide so we could attend) my wife wanted to leave halfway through. She said I'm the only Chinese here, and probably the only Chinese speaker, and I'm hearing too much that rubs me the wrong way. Let's go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not have firsthand knowledge, but piecing together from this thread and what I've read elsewhere on DCUM, it sounds like their charter was threatened recently when the many stories of this dual lottery were not going away, and they reluctantly now are clear that they only have one lottery and do not give language preference (which is the part that is against the charters). If they are still cheating, I'd guess they are risking their charter, but that is basically just a guess given what I've read here and heard elsewhere.

Lamb, like YY, is one of the charter boards darlings. Nothing will happen to them if they continue to circumvent the process and cheat. Are you kidding, the DCUM crowd may do something violent. And, I am a parent of one of these charters.

Wrong. The question put them in jeopardy, so they removed it. You clearly have no firsthand experience with the PCSB,

People have commented that the question was on this year's application. So, it is obviously back. As a YY parent, I think YY should follow Lamb, and flaunt the law. Apparently the DCPC board does not care. And, it would be in YY's best interest. If Lamb can do it and get away with it, YY, Stokes, MV, Sela, and DC Bilingual should also flaunt the law. Two-way immersion would be great for YY, and the charter board cannot penalize YY without also penalizing LAMB, right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You're mistaking accusations against YY parents with the opinions of YY parents.

OK, maybe I am. Doesn't change the fact that your school community doesn't appear to roll out the welcome mat to an immigrant group that struggles to fit in and understand race and class politics in America. My immigrant in-laws have no clear conception of why most poor AA families can't send their kids to top colleges, as they did, although they would have been a FARMs family in the 70s and 80s if they hadn't been too proud to accept the help. YY would surely have more Chinese-speaking students and parents, whatever the law says, if the school made a point of giving prospective bilingual parents the impression that you wanted them. When we attended an info night (purposely timed a US visit to coincide so we could attend) my wife wanted to leave halfway through. She said I'm the only Chinese here, and probably the only Chinese speaker, and I'm hearing too much that rubs me the wrong way. Let's go.




Thanks for clarifying. While I'm not happy to hear criticisms of YY based on.actual personal experiences, they make sense. What confounds me are people who hate YY based solely on what they read on this board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course this YY parent would like more two-way immersion...don't know of any YY parent who would be against this.

This YY parent knows boatloads of others who would be against two-way if it hurt their chances of being admitted, which of course it would unless the school and DCPC were doing something radically different. They might not say so, but they wouldn't support dual immersion. They just want a decent school (better than most IB on Capitol Hill, in Petworth, or wherever) where their kid learns more than a little of a foreign language. They get that and they're satisfied. You are an unusually sophisticated and Chinese-minded YY parent to want more!

You're saying that parents whose children have already been admitted are afraid that they'll be shut out? How is that possible?

Come on, you're splitting hairs here, all too easy to say "I'd love 2-way immersion" when you're into a school that miles and miles from admitting enough bilingual students to support it. The only way to get 2-way immersion is to admit a lot more bilingual kids, and far fewer who aren't, than YY does now. Almost no support and a lot of somewhat short-sighted self-interest at every stage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course this YY parent would like more two-way immersion...don't know of any YY parent who would be against this.

This YY parent knows boatloads of others who would be against two-way if it hurt their chances of being admitted, which of course it would unless the school and DCPC were doing something radically different. They might not say so, but they wouldn't support dual immersion. They just want a decent school (better than most IB on Capitol Hill, in Petworth, or wherever) where their kid learns more than a little of a foreign language. They get that and they're satisfied. You are an unusually sophisticated and Chinese-minded YY parent to want more!

You're saying that parents whose children have already been admitted are afraid that they'll be shut out? How is that possible?

It isn't possible. They are already in. The only people who care are the ones who desperately want a spot and are looking for any angle that'll get them an advantage and preference in the lottery.

All the smoke and mirrors about how much it will be better for the school and all is secondary to getting them oneupmanship in the lottery.

Everyone wants more bilingual kids in the program, of course, but not enough to give them preference or to run a dual lottery.