2025 Immersion Waitlist

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our family is interested in immersion schooling so my child will have meaningful exposure to a foreign language and gain fluency. I understand it's not uncommon that children can actually later be behind their peers in terms of English language standardized testing so I realize not every "outcome" will be a good one, but to answer your question, we want our child in a foreign language immersion program so that they csn learn another language well. I do wish this could take place at our home school.

I have heard of some refer to the opportunity in sort of an elitist way so I think I understand some of your frustration.

I suggest we keep this thread about the waitlist since there is a group of people appreciating the information sharing. And then if someone would like to continue discussing the MCPS immersion programs, that person should start a new thread.

My only experience with immersion programs are white families pushing to move their kid from their home school (that is predominantly native Spanish speakers) to another school that’s a different demographic to learn Spanish from teachers. Wouldn’t you rather your kid be immersed by native speakers? Without the longer bus ride and lack of data showing it helps your child?

This is one of the many reasons I prefer dual immersion to one way immersion, for Spanish at least. Families who want their kids to become bilingual in Spanish can get that but at a school full of native Spanish speaking kids rather than in a special immersion program that often has very different (richer/whiter) demographics, native English and Spanish speakers are on equal footing, programs are able to hire from the limited pool of bilingual teachers to benefit both native Spanish speakers and native English speakers alike rather than primarily native English speakers, etc

I just wish there were more dual immersion schools, and that there were ways for some out of boundary kids to be allowed in. Part of me thinks they should do away with one way immersion Spanish programs entirely, and instead have the immersion lottery send kids to dual immersion programs in heavily Spanish-speaking/EML elementary schools instead...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our family is interested in immersion schooling so my child will have meaningful exposure to a foreign language and gain fluency. I understand it's not uncommon that children can actually later be behind their peers in terms of English language standardized testing so I realize not every "outcome" will be a good one, but to answer your question, we want our child in a foreign language immersion program so that they csn learn another language well. I do wish this could take place at our home school.

I have heard of some refer to the opportunity in sort of an elitist way so I think I understand some of your frustration.

I suggest we keep this thread about the waitlist since there is a group of people appreciating the information sharing. And then if someone would like to continue discussing the MCPS immersion programs, that person should start a new thread.

My only experience with immersion programs are white families pushing to move their kid from their home school (that is predominantly native Spanish speakers) to another school that’s a different demographic to learn Spanish from teachers. Wouldn’t you rather your kid be immersed by native speakers? Without the longer bus ride and lack of data showing it helps your child?

This is one of the many reasons I prefer dual immersion to one way immersion, for Spanish at least. Families who want their kids to become bilingual in Spanish can get that but at a school full of native Spanish speaking kids rather than in a special immersion program that often has very different (richer/whiter) demographics, native English and Spanish speakers are on equal footing, programs are able to hire from the limited pool of bilingual teachers to benefit both native Spanish speakers and native English speakers alike rather than primarily native English speakers, etc

I just wish there were more dual immersion schools, and that there were ways for some out of boundary kids to be allowed in. Part of me thinks they should do away with one way immersion Spanish programs entirely, and instead have the immersion lottery send kids to dual immersion programs in heavily Spanish-speaking/EML elementary schools instead...

I get this. I also think the dual model should be expanded. I’m not sure I agree with eliminating the total immersion programs, but I do think some of them are not housed in ideal schools. I’m not sure if it’s always been this way or if the makeup of some of these schools has changed over time, but magnet programs are ideally placed in lower performing schools, and at this point in time that is very much not the case for all the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the waitlists are probably done moving for now until the week or so before school starts. Not because the office isn’t working, but because people are pretty settled in their plans. There’s always movement right before and after school starts though.

I reached out to the office at the end of June and was told that "there has been no significant movements in waitlists across the immersion programs" (though I was just inquiring about three: RCF, Potomac, and Sligo Creek). I had assumed there would have been a little movement earlier in the summer, but it looks like there hasn't been much at all this year? I understand it's not likely to move much again until late August/September; I was just surprised that nothing much has changed since the initial results came out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the waitlists are probably done moving for now until the week or so before school starts. Not because the office isn’t working, but because people are pretty settled in their plans. There’s always movement right before and after school starts though.

I reached out to the office at the end of June and was told that "there has been no significant movements in waitlists across the immersion programs" (though I was just inquiring about three: RCF, Potomac, and Sligo Creek). I had assumed there would have been a little movement earlier in the summer, but it looks like there hasn't been much at all this year? I understand it's not likely to move much again until late August/September; I was just surprised that nothing much has changed since the initial results came out.

That seems strange. Were you inquiring about kindergarten or a different grade?

I know that some programs got into the teens at least (kindergarten) which I would not characterize as insignificant movement….

[Anonymous]

There is movement in May towards mid June then no movement in July, then 2-3 weeks before school starts a lot more faster movement

[Anonymous]

I feel one way is preferable because the language is taught full day instead of half day. And—for Spanish—I’m not sure that the Spanish speaking students are speaking Spanish with the non-Spanish speaking students outside of the classroom. Language assessment comparison of the two programs would be helpful, but they probably won’t make this info public. Or just meeting some non-native 4th grade students from each program would be enlightening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel one way is preferable because the language is taught full day instead of half day. And—for Spanish—I’m not sure that the Spanish speaking students are speaking Spanish with the non-Spanish speaking students outside of the classroom. Language assessment comparison of the two programs would be helpful, but they probably won’t make this info public. Or just meeting some non-native 4th grade students from each program would be enlightening.

Yes, I agree that more is better from the perspective that fluency is the goal. Even in our full immersion program the teachers stress the importance of more exposure to language outside of school. Kids are intuitive language learners but I think it’s easy to underestimate just how much work it is to really learn a foreign language that isn’t spoken at home.