MoCo Language Immersion Lottery - what are the odds and when do you find out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the answer is to get better school administration, rather than ditch the program at RCF. Bad principals can happen anywhere -- it doesn't mean the program itself is a bad idea. And immersion turnover being more challenging is just a fact of life -- it's a much smaller subset of qualified teachers that you can draw from, so it's quite a big deal to recruit replacement teachers.

It looks like the current principal may be on his way to an MCPS central office job fairly soon, which is a shame for MCPS students but a good thing for RCF.

They should house immersion programs at one location and not create schools within schools. It creates a lot more work for the administration and makes staff allocation difficult. It can also cause confusion for some kids who don't understand why they can't be in the special program. Interesting to hear that the current principal is heading for promotion.

This will never happen, nor should it happen. The whole point of magnet schools is to attract affluent students to low-income schools.

Please explain how you think an immersion program creates a lot more work for the administration and makes staff allocation difficult. (I don't even know what you mean by the latter comment.)

Do you have personal experience with this?

Seems straightforward enough why it would complicate staff allocation. You can't take a French, Spanish or Chinese teacher and move them to an English classroom or vice versa. You don't have as many options when trying to figure out how to move your teachers when you need an extra classroom at one grade level, for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the answer is to get better school administration, rather than ditch the program at RCF. Bad principals can happen anywhere -- it doesn't mean the program itself is a bad idea. And immersion turnover being more challenging is just a fact of life -- it's a much smaller subset of qualified teachers that you can draw from, so it's quite a big deal to recruit replacement teachers.

It looks like the current principal may be on his way to an MCPS central office job fairly soon, which is a shame for MCPS students but a good thing for RCF.

They should house immersion programs at one location and not create schools within schools. It creates a lot more work for the administration and makes staff allocation difficult. It can also cause confusion for some kids who don't understand why they can't be in the special program. Interesting to hear that the current principal is heading for promotion.

This will never happen, nor should it happen. The whole point of magnet schools is to attract affluent students to low-income schools.

Please explain how you think an immersion program creates a lot more work for the administration and makes staff allocation difficult. (I don't even know what you mean by the latter comment.)

Do you have personal experience with this?

Seems straightforward enough why it would complicate staff allocation. You can't take a French, Spanish or Chinese teacher and move them to an English classroom or vice versa. You don't have as many options when trying to figure out how to move your teachers when you need an extra classroom at one grade level, for example.

Those issues are addressed within the context of the regular program - just as they are at any other school. So it's not more, nor is it less complicated than it is at the school down the road w/no immersion program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the answer is to get better school administration, rather than ditch the program at RCF. Bad principals can happen anywhere -- it doesn't mean the program itself is a bad idea. And immersion turnover being more challenging is just a fact of life -- it's a much smaller subset of qualified teachers that you can draw from, so it's quite a big deal to recruit replacement teachers.

It looks like the current principal may be on his way to an MCPS central office job fairly soon, which is a shame for MCPS students but a good thing for RCF.

They should house immersion programs at one location and not create schools within schools. It creates a lot more work for the administration and makes staff allocation difficult. It can also cause confusion for some kids who don't understand why they can't be in the special program. Interesting to hear that the current principal is heading for promotion.

This will never happen, nor should it happen. The whole point of magnet schools is to attract affluent students to low-income schools.

Please explain how you think an immersion program creates a lot more work for the administration and makes staff allocation difficult. (I don't even know what you mean by the latter comment.)

Do you have personal experience with this?

Seems straightforward enough why it would complicate staff allocation. You can't take a French, Spanish or Chinese teacher and move them to an English classroom or vice versa. You don't have as many options when trying to figure out how to move your teachers when you need an extra classroom at one grade level, for example.

Those issues are addressed within the context of the regular program - just as they are at any other school. So it's not more, nor is it less complicated than it is at the school down the road w/no immersion program.

The immersion teachers at DC's school are fully bilingual and could teach non-immersion classes. I don't know if this is the case at all schools. I'm imagining many immersion teachers are qualified and certified to teach the curriculum, even in English.

[Anonymous]

The problem is that 1) it can be hard to find qualified teachers (I am thinking of Chinese which is at my school) and 2) if the number of kids in the immersion calss shrinks over the years..the ratios have to go up in the other classes to accomodate the small chinese class. At my school Chinese starts full and then shrinks until it is a combined 4/5 class. Some years they put english curriculum kids in the chinese class for the English portion of the day to reduce the burden on the other teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the answer is to get better school administration, rather than ditch the program at RCF. Bad principals can happen anywhere -- it doesn't mean the program itself is a bad idea. And immersion turnover being more challenging is just a fact of life -- it's a much smaller subset of qualified teachers that you can draw from, so it's quite a big deal to recruit replacement teachers.

It looks like the current principal may be on his way to an MCPS central office job fairly soon, which is a shame for MCPS students but a good thing for RCF.

They should house immersion programs at one location and not create schools within schools. It creates a lot more work for the administration and makes staff allocation difficult. It can also cause confusion for some kids who don't understand why they can't be in the special program. Interesting to hear that the current principal is heading for promotion.

This will never happen, nor should it happen. The whole point of magnet schools is to attract affluent students to low-income schools.

Please explain how you think an immersion program creates a lot more work for the administration and makes staff allocation difficult. (I don't even know what you mean by the latter comment.)

Do you have personal experience with this?

Seems straightforward enough why it would complicate staff allocation. You can't take a French, Spanish or Chinese teacher and move them to an English classroom or vice versa. You don't have as many options when trying to figure out how to move your teachers when you need an extra classroom at one grade level, for example.

Those issues are addressed within the context of the regular program - just as they are at any other school. So it's not more, nor is it less complicated than it is at the school down the road w/no immersion program.

The immersion teachers at DC's school are fully bilingual and could teach non-immersion classes. I don't know if this is the case at all schools. I'm imagining many immersion teachers are qualified and certified to teach the curriculum, even in English.

At RCF, not all the teachers are fully bilingual. Maybe more so as the years go by, but there are some who I think are not qualified to teach English, for example. I just can't imagine they'd be effective at marking up student writing.