SELA! Hebrew immersion charter

[Anonymous]

Let's talk about it here, and not in EVERY. OTHER. THREAD.

What does SELA stand for?
When is it slated to open?
How awesome is it going to be?
How about the DCI prospects?
How does your religion affect your likelihood of sending your child there?

Those should get us started! From the mundane to the potentially controversial. Have at it. Have at it HERE.

[Anonymous]

Religion is not a factor.

[Anonymous]

Any new charter deserves a chance to prove itself. Sela: good luck!

[Anonymous]

Nobody would send their kid there unless they are jewish or the other school option is bad academically. hebrew is almost useless unless you are jewish. I've never met a non-jewish child who studied hebrew. Maybe some theologians do, but that would be in their college years I am guessing or even later.

[Anonymous]

I like the idea of language immersion schools in general, but Hebrew doesn't seem like a great choice for a public charter given the low economic value of Hebrew in the global workforce. I am not Jewish, but I would send my kid there if it was my best academic option and the school was strict about no religious content. I would worry about not being Jewish only if more than 50% of the students were Jewish and then only if I felt my kid would feel like an outsider. In DC, I doubt that a high performing charter will get such a religious imbalance because of the strict lottery system. Seats at good schools are just too competitive. If it turns out to be a low performing school, maybe it will become religiously unbalanced, but then I imagine that even Jewish parents will eschew it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like the idea of language immersion schools in general, but Hebrew doesn't seem like a great choice for a public charter given the low economic value of Hebrew in the global workforce. I am not Jewish, but I would send my kid there if it was my best academic option and the school was strict about no religious content. I would worry about not being Jewish only if more than 50% of the students were Jewish and then only if I felt my kid would feel like an outsider. In DC, I doubt that a high performing charter will get such a religious imbalance because of the strict lottery system. Seats at good schools are just too competitive. If it turns out to be a low performing school, maybe it will become religiously unbalanced, but then I imagine that even Jewish parents will eschew it.

By the way, most Jews in this country go to school where the majority of the school population is Christian-- just some perspective. Do you think Jewish children feel like outsiders?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nobody would send their kid there unless they are jewish or the other school option is bad academically. hebrew is almost useless unless you are jewish. I've never met a non-jewish child who studied hebrew. Maybe some theologians do, but that would be in their college years I am guessing or even later.

I am skeptic as well, but life s full of surprises. If they make it work, power to them.

[Anonymous]

I wish the school success. However, I would not send my child there if I had other options. I would choose it over a low performing inbound DCPS or charter. I would not choose it over any of the other language schools in DCPS or DC charter.

Fortunately, my child is in one of the DCI soon-to-be consortium schools. If Sela is accepted later on, I would discourage my child from taking Hebrew as the third language. I think the other three languages are more practical. Interesting enough, if Arabic was offered at DCI I would encourage language. I think my reasoning has a lot to do with the U.S. State Department's desired languages of acquisition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like the idea of language immersion schools in general, but Hebrew doesn't seem like a great choice for a public charter given the low economic value of Hebrew in the global workforce. I am not Jewish, but I would send my kid there if it was my best academic option and the school was strict about no religious content. I would worry about not being Jewish only if more than 50% of the students were Jewish and then only if I felt my kid would feel like an outsider. In DC, I doubt that a high performing charter will get such a religious imbalance because of the strict lottery system. Seats at good schools are just too competitive. If it turns out to be a low performing school, maybe it will become religiously unbalanced, but then I imagine that even Jewish parents will eschew it.

By the way, most Jews in this country go to school where the majority of the school population is Christian-- just some perspective. Do you think Jewish children feel like outsiders?

I think that a Jewish kid going to a school that is focused on teaching Biblical Latin would probably feel out of place, yes. If SELA turns out not to have a strong Jewish culture to the school and is basically a secular public school that has some extra language classes, then I would send my kid there because religion will not matter. Only time will tell if it will feel like a Jewish school or it will feel like a generic "language immersion" school.

[Anonymous]

The school has to be strict about no religious content - it is a public school. I definitely think Hebrew is one of the least useful languages (though that also depends on one's personal experiences - one may have family in Israel. I'm not Jewish but as a young adult, I was fascinated by Hebrew and wanted to move to Israel to study Hebrew. I did end up going and spent a month on a kibbutz and several weeks traveling around. I think Hebrew would have been hard for me as I'm tone deaf and not great with accents but it was very easy to get around with just English) but there are benefits to bilingualism that go beyond the practical use of the knowledge. I would have loved the idea of an Arabic/Hebrew immersion school but understand that charters develop based on the people who propose them. Wish Sela and all charters the best of luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish the school success. However, I would not send my child there if I had other options. I would choose it over a low performing inbound DCPS or charter. I would not choose it over any of the other language schools in DCPS or DC charter.

Fortunately, my child is in one of the DCI soon-to-be consortium schools. If Sela is accepted later on, I would discourage my child from taking Hebrew as the third language. I think the other three languages are more practical. Interesting enough, if Arabic was offered at DCI I would encourage language. I think my reasoning has a lot to do with the U.S. State Department's desired languages of acquisition.

I would favor an Arabic language school over Hebrew as well. The job prospects with Arabic are much better and I think this trend will increase as our kids get older.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like the idea of language immersion schools in general, but Hebrew doesn't seem like a great choice for a public charter given the low economic value of Hebrew in the global workforce. I am not Jewish, but I would send my kid there if it was my best academic option and the school was strict about no religious content. I would worry about not being Jewish only if more than 50% of the students were Jewish and then only if I felt my kid would feel like an outsider. In DC, I doubt that a high performing charter will get such a religious imbalance because of the strict lottery system. Seats at good schools are just too competitive. If it turns out to be a low performing school, maybe it will become religiously unbalanced, but then I imagine that even Jewish parents will eschew it.

By the way, most Jews in this country go to school where the majority of the school population is Christian-- just some perspective. Do you think Jewish children feel like outsiders?

That's not what PP suggested and you know it. Stop trying to stir shit up just for the sake of stirring shit up.

Not the PP, but I'll use a slightly different critique along the same lines: what is it about 50%? Everyone in the U.S. who isn't a white Christian is accustomed to being in minority. And by the timewhite Christian kids are adults, they'll be a minority group, too. What's the problem with having that experience start early?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish the school success. However, I would not send my child there if I had other options. I would choose it over a low performing inbound DCPS or charter. I would not choose it over any of the other language schools in DCPS or DC charter.

Fortunately, my child is in one of the DCI soon-to-be consortium schools. If Sela is accepted later on, I would discourage my child from taking Hebrew as the third language. I think the other three languages are more practical. Interesting enough, if Arabic was offered at DCI I would encourage language. I think my reasoning has a lot to do with the U.S. State Department's desired languages of acquisition.

These are my thoughts exactly. I think Arabic is a far more useful language to learn, but am strongly in favor of more language programs reaching more kids, pretty much regardless of what language it is.

[Anonymous]

There has been a lot of talk about Sela being a good choice if a family's inbound school is terrible or if a family that values a bilingual education can't get in anywhere else. I am not Jewish, but when I heard of Sela I obviously thought that some of the Jewish families I knew that had young kids would apply there. But that isn't the case in my circle of friends -- they aren't planning to pull their kids out of their current decent DCPS or charter for Sela.

So who is truly excited about Sela and clamoring to have their kids go there and learn Hebrew for the sake of learning Hebrew as a second language? Hopefully I'm wrong, but I just don't see the school filling up with families who really want to be there and that it is their first choice. It will be interesting to see how that affects the community of the school and how many families stick with it for multiple years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like the idea of language immersion schools in general, but Hebrew doesn't seem like a great choice for a public charter given the low economic value of Hebrew in the global workforce. I am not Jewish, but I would send my kid there if it was my best academic option and the school was strict about no religious content. I would worry about not being Jewish only if more than 50% of the students were Jewish and then only if I felt my kid would feel like an outsider. In DC, I doubt that a high performing charter will get such a religious imbalance because of the strict lottery system. Seats at good schools are just too competitive. If it turns out to be a low performing school, maybe it will become religiously unbalanced, but then I imagine that even Jewish parents will eschew it.

By the way, most Jews in this country go to school where the majority of the school population is Christian-- just some perspective. Do you think Jewish children feel like outsiders?

Pinhead.
That tends to happen with minorities.