What’s going on at DCI?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This debate rages on because people attended the feeders with vastly different expectations and motivations.

Most people I know with older students at DCI (born 2002-2004) chose a feeder because they were avoiding their IB DCPS and couldn’t afford a private. The chance to give their child an immersion education was icing on the cake but mostly they wanted a decent school.

The families who sought out immersion because they wanted foreign language instruction over all else - many of whom had other sound DCPS or private options - are more unhappy.

Sort of agree. Don't think the unhappy parents wanted foreign language instruction above all else. I think they wanted serious academics across the board, and didn't find them.The reasons they haven't found first-rate academics are debatable. But pretty clearly, when a school's board can't be bothered to hire senior admins with a command of the target language (or experience living or working in an area where the language is spoken widely) something is wrong.

The unhappy parents could easily have seen through the smoke screen before enrolling. I remember going to a YY open house where the parents sitting next to me left early, although they had a winning lottery #. They left after discovering that the principal spoke little Chinese, and that no part of the presentation, and none of the printed materials being handed out, had been translated into Mandarin. They said "joke for Chinese" and promptly walked out.

OK, I've been taking the native Chinese speakers with a grain of salt, but that's a little sad - every one of our materials, emails, communications is in both Spanish and English at our immersion school. It's a little offensive even.

[Anonymous]

Trust me, hardly anybody at YY thinks the practice it's offensive. They say, there aren't parents who don't read or understand English, so why pay for the translations? The money would be much better spent on other inputs. Then they claim that native speakers don't enroll mainly because they can't get in through the lottery. It's a really popular, really strange school.

[Anonymous]

This native speaker isn't OK with the English-rules-for-family communication BS. We turned down a spot after admins explained to us that the only school materials that would come home in Chinese would be academic work from Chinese classes.

Unless the head changes and DCI hires a Mandarin-speaking senior admin, the BS continues without stakeholders pushing back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This debate rages on because people attended the feeders with vastly different expectations and motivations.

Most people I know with older students at DCI (born 2002-2004) chose a feeder because they were avoiding their IB DCPS and couldn’t afford a private. The chance to give their child an immersion education was icing on the cake but mostly they wanted a decent school.

The families who sought out immersion because they wanted foreign language instruction over all else - many of whom had other sound DCPS or private options - are more unhappy.

Sort of agree. Don't think the unhappy parents wanted foreign language instruction above all else. I think they wanted serious academics across the board, and didn't find them.The reasons they haven't found first-rate academics are debatable. But pretty clearly, when a school's board can't be bothered to hire senior admins with a command of the target language (or experience living or working in an area where the language is spoken widely) something is wrong.

The unhappy parents could easily have seen through the smoke screen before enrolling. I remember going to a YY open house where the parents sitting next to me left early, although they had a winning lottery #. They left after discovering that the principal spoke little Chinese, and that no part of the presentation, and none of the printed materials being handed out, had been translated into Mandarin. They said "joke for Chinese" and promptly walked out.

OK, I've been taking the native Chinese speakers with a grain of salt, but that's a little sad - every one of our materials, emails, communications is in both Spanish and English at our immersion school. It's a little offensive even.

Very impressive, good for your Spanish immersion program. Offending the model minority just isn't risky business in this town, or country. Maybe it will become one if Harvard loses the admission lawsuit (really unlikely).

[Anonymous]

To current YY admins, sending school communication home in Chinese would be tantamount to admitting that the program needs a good cohort of native speakers and bilingual ABC families to attain robust language learning outputs as the basis for high performance at DCI.

That's a non-PC message YY will not send after over a decade of maintaining it ain't so.

[Anonymous]

Does DCI produce materials for parents / home in anything besides English?

Report cards, notices, etc?

[Anonymous]

NP. Parents who CARE that a school can't teach Chinese or French in a way that will get impressive results at the intl bacclaureate diploma level don't enroll at DCI or don't hang on to high school.
The only advanfed language instruction at DCI is for Spanish!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does DCI produce materials for parents / home in anything besides English?

Report cards, notices, etc?

Some stuff will come home in Spanish if you ask for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does DCI produce materials for parents / home in anything besides English?

Report cards, notices, etc?

Some stuff will come home in Spanish if you ask for it.

OMG that is so NOT the point.

Translation at school events?

And nothing in Chinese / French?

[Anonymous]

Occasional translation at Spanish track events only.

Only parents who haven't experienced YY or Stokes are going to be shocked.

When you haven't come across a single translation for ethnic families who don't speak English well in the course of 7 or 8 years at a feeder (and don't know any such families) it doesn't even occur to you that a translation should be provided.

DCI just sounds really good. Nice web site, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Occasional translation at Spanish track events only.

Only parents who haven't experienced YY or Stokes are going to be shocked.

When you haven't come across a single translation for ethnic families who don't speak English well in the course of 7 or 8 years at a feeder (and don't know any such families) it doesn't even occur to you that a translation should be provided.

DCI just sounds really good. Nice web site, too.

LAMB does translation too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Occasional translation at Spanish track events only.

Only parents who haven't experienced YY or Stokes are going to be shocked.

When you haven't come across a single translation for ethnic families who don't speak English well in the course of 7 or 8 years at a feeder (and don't know any such families) it doesn't even occur to you that a translation should be provided.

DCI just sounds really good. Nice web site, too.

LAMB does translation too.

I would assume all the Spanish immersion charters do ... we were at Bridges and all communications came in both Spanish and English! (Not PTA meetings etc. like at our feeder.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trust me, hardly anybody at YY thinks the practice it's offensive. They say, there aren't parents who don't read or understand English, so why pay for the translations? The money would be much better spent on other inputs. Then they claim that native speakers don't enroll mainly because they can't get in through the lottery. It's a really popular, really strange school.

Yes. The school is really popular and the retention rate is very high for their students. Most Yu Ying families at the school are very happy with the school. Also, DC just does not have many native Mandarin speaking 3/4 yr olds.

[Anonymous]

Language immersion charter admins in DC tend to embrace a take-it-or-leave-it approach to dealing w/parents. Don't like the fact that communication to families isn't normally translated into a target languages at certain feeders and DCI? Too bad, go find another school if you don't like the way we do business. Our waiting list is long!!

The big picture problem is that this approach to dealing with ethnic bilingual communities hurts immersion study. Not a small problem, because dual immersion, or anything like it, is a more effective approach to immersion study than one-way immersion.

Right, YY families are happy with the school, although many kids who've attended for years can hardly speak the target language. The problem isn't so much that there aren't many native Mandarin-speaking preschoolers in DC, it's that the community of ethnic bilingual families (speaking various dialects) in the Metro area isn't on board to help. We're asked really basic questions about Chinese language and culture by longtime YY and DCI parents in our neighborhood. We teach them that Mandarin is just one of half a dozen major dialects.

[Anonymous]

Um, most DCI families hardly care about anything but escaping crappy in-boundary schools in this story. Repeat.

That's what's going on at DCI.