Washington Yu Ying Public Charter School

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Washington Yu Ying Public Charter School is hosting an information session this Wednesday:

Wednesday, December 3 at 6pm.  
First Floor Multipurpose Room
4401 8th Street, NE, 
Washington, DC 20017 

We will also be participating in 2 school fairs this week:

Thursday, December 4, MoTH School Night - http://www.hillschoolinfonight.org/about.html,
Sunday, December 7, Jack and Jill School night at Georgetown Day School

In case you haven’t heard about Yu Ying yet, we are a Chinese Immersion school that employs the International Baccalaureate
curriculum framework. Students spend alternating days learning all subjects in their Chinese and English classrooms.

We are accepting applications for PreK 4 year olds, Kindergarten, 1st Grade and 2nd Grade for the 2009-10 school year.  Please apply online,  www.washingtonyuying.org

As a public charter school, Yu Ying is free and open to all children of the District of Columbia.

[Anonymous]

Do you have more information on the Jack and Jill event?

[Anonymous]

The Washington DC Chapter of
Jack and Jill of America, Inc.

Annual School Fair
Sunday, December 7, 2008
3:30pm -- 5pm

More than 50 independent, parochial, and charter schools
Representative of DC, MD, and VA

Suggested donation to be deposited upon entry:
A book for the Boys and Girls Town library (10-18 years old)
and/or
A non-perishable food item for the Capital City Food Bank

Hosted by:
Georgetown Day School
@GDS High School
4200 Davenport Street, NW
Washington DC 20016
www.gds.org
Free garage parking. Metro Bus and Subway Accessible

Sponsored by:
Metropolitan Educational Consultants
www.mec-group.org

[Anonymous]

Jack and Jill is a social networking group for upper middle class African American families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jack and Jill is a social networking group for upper middle class African American families.

What does that have to do with Yu Ying?????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jack and Jill is a social networking group for upper middle class African American families.

What does that have to do with Yu Ying?????

Other than the fact that they (along with Metropolitan Educational Consultants) will be hosting their 8th Annual School Fair on 12/7, at which 50 other schools will be represented, very little. Details above, PP 11:11.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jack and Jill is a social networking group for upper middle class African American families.

What does that have to do with Yu Ying?????

Looks like Jack and Jill is having a school night, according to the first post:

"We will also be participating in 2 school fairs this week:

Thursday, December 4, MoTH School Night - http://www.hillschoolinfonight.org/about.html

Sunday, December 7, Jack and Jill School night at Georgetown Day School"

[Anonymous]

Can you attend if you are not African American or black?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you attend if you are not African American or black?

I am sure you can.

[Anonymous]

Did anyone go to the first open house at this school?

I missed it and and will probably try to go to the next one but wanted to hear feedback.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know how many slots for each grade will be available for 2009-2010 school?

[Anonymous]

Pre-K will have the most, 44 - 50 total but some of these will be taken by siblings of current students. 2nd grade will be next, maybe a dozen or more. Any students entering for 2nd will need to go to the school's daily language camp in the summer. 1st & K will have the least, maybe only a handful between them as those classes are actually quite full.

[Anonymous]

I heard the school has different grade levels in the same class. So do the pre-k students that were in the pre-k/k stay in that class? How about the children that were in the K/1st grade class do they all go to 2nd grade? Could someone help me out I am alittle confused.

[Anonymous]

There are six classes and three sets of teachers total, not including Specials. The school's instruction model is alternating days of English and Mandarin. Under this model, Pre-K A (Crickets) has English while Pre-K B (Pandas) has Chinese and they switch back and forth from day to day. This way they're always speaking Chinese in the Chinese classroom, etc. Specials are split so that they get each two days per week, once in each language (i.e. PE on an English day, Art on a Chinese day, Art on an English day, PE on a Chinese day). This is the way it works in the Pre-K and the way it will work with all incoming classes. The model is designed so that students have their teachers for two years, so this year's Pre-K will have the same English/Chinese teaching team, as well as the same classmates next year that they have this year.

Ideally, the school would have liked to have had roughly the same number of 1st/K/Pre-K students, with one set of teachers (English Lead/English Asst. and Chinese Lead/Chinese Asst.) serving one whole grade and the students of the same grade trading classrooms on alternating days. Because they are a first year school they had to work with an applicant pool that skewed heavily towards Pre-K and K.

Consequently, combination classes were set up with the oldest pair of classes (Dolphins & Owls) being a combination of 1st & K, and the middle pair (Lions & Tigers) a combination of Pre-K & K, and the youngest (Pandas & Crickets) being pure Pre-K. If you saw the pictures in the City Paper article or the news video segment that ran on the CBN, both of those stories happened to include footage and pictures from the Panda Pre-K class. The group that is participating at the World Bank's Chinese Program today is Dolphins & Owls.

I don't know what exactly the plan is for next years classes Dolphins/Owls & Lions/Tigers, PP. This will probably depend in some measure on the applicant pool: how many new rising 2nd applicants there are, and how they can best be combined to make classes that make sense for the existing rising 2nd, rising 1st, and rising K. At the time that decision gets made for the upper grades, the teachers will have had a year of getting to know the students and may be able to combine them into more homogeneous groups or leave them in more heterogeneous groups - whatever makes the most sense with the options available at that time. What they WON'T do is "force" students into a grade level that doesn't meet their needs. They also won't be throwing in new students with no Mandarin background without getting them into language camp and giving them the opportunity to get to know their age-mates and classmates. And they won't let the oldest set of students (arguably in the most experimental position) always be exposed to the newest and least experienced teaching teams.

I think the odds of getting a child into the rising K class are probably the longest, because this class will always be a bulge that reflects the school's first year. If I had a 1st grader/rising 2nd grader I would still go visit the school, but I would probably only be considering it seriously if I knew I had an academically gifted and engaged child. The school's payoff would be enormous, but there would be some catching up to do. Having said that, a 7-year-old's brain is far more flexible and naturally able to do that catching up than that of an adult. Young brains are meant to learn languages, that's the beauty of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are six classes and three sets of teachers total, not including Specials. The school's instruction model is alternating days of English and Mandarin. Under this model, Pre-K A (Crickets) has English while Pre-K B (Pandas) has Chinese and they switch back and forth from day to day. This way they're always speaking Chinese in the Chinese classroom, etc. Specials are split so that they get each two days per week, once in each language (i.e. PE on an English day, Art on a Chinese day, Art on an English day, PE on a Chinese day). This is the way it works in the Pre-K and the way it will work with all incoming classes. The model is designed so that students have their teachers for two years, so this year's Pre-K will have the same English/Chinese teaching team, as well as the same classmates next year that they have this year.

Ideally, the school would have liked to have had roughly the same number of 1st/K/Pre-K students, with one set of teachers (English Lead/English Asst. and Chinese Lead/Chinese Asst.) serving one whole grade and the students of the same grade trading classrooms on alternating days. Because they are a first year school they had to work with an applicant pool that skewed heavily towards Pre-K and K.

Consequently, combination classes were set up with the oldest pair of classes (Dolphins & Owls) being a combination of 1st & K, and the middle pair (Lions & Tigers) a combination of Pre-K & K, and the youngest (Pandas & Crickets) being pure Pre-K. If you saw the pictures in the City Paper article or the news video segment that ran on the CBN, both of those stories happened to include footage and pictures from the Panda Pre-K class. The group that is participating at the World Bank's Chinese Program today is Dolphins & Owls.

I don't know what exactly the plan is for next years classes Dolphins/Owls & Lions/Tigers, PP. This will probably depend in some measure on the applicant pool: how many new rising 2nd applicants there are, and how they can best be combined to make classes that make sense for the existing rising 2nd, rising 1st, and rising K. At the time that decision gets made for the upper grades, the teachers will have had a year of getting to know the students and may be able to combine them into more homogeneous groups or leave them in more heterogeneous groups - whatever makes the most sense with the options available at that time. What they WON'T do is "force" students into a grade level that doesn't meet their needs. They also won't be throwing in new students with no Mandarin background without getting them into language camp and giving them the opportunity to get to know their age-mates and classmates. And they won't let the oldest set of students (arguably in the most experimental position) always be exposed to the newest and least experienced teaching teams.

I think the odds of getting a child into the rising K class are probably the longest, because this class will always be a bulge that reflects the school's first year. If I had a 1st grader/rising 2nd grader I would still go visit the school, but I would probably only be considering it seriously if I knew I had an academically gifted and engaged child. The school's payoff would be enormous, but there would be some catching up to do. Having said that, a 7-year-old's brain is far more flexible and naturally able to do that catching up than that of an adult. Young brains are meant to learn languages, that's the beauty of it.

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My daughter goes to Yu-Ying - This post is very well summarized. Thanks