Spanish Immersion Community Table Session

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think there is an idea that moving to a more centralized location. Which some have deemed kenmore to be they will attract more Key families to continue with Immersion. We are Claremont, I know maybe 10 families that left immersion. I heard with key nearly 50% of families left immersion this year. Gunston is mainly Claremont families supposedly..

Some key parents said they don't go to gunston due to location but I think everyone ignores the elephant in the room for not going to Gunston. One that Kenmore won't solve.

Exactly NA families at Key aren’t sending their kids to KENMORE.

WMS would be a BIG draw for immersion from SA families too.

I am a SA Immersion family and WMS has NO draw for me.

I am also from SA and WMS has no draw for me either. My kid is very happy in the immersion program at Gunston..I guess it is fine that it moves to Kenmore. I mean I will grumbled about it but that is just because it sucks to move and Gunston is super close to us (my kid can bike but won't bike to kenmore)

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It is fascinating to me how people have spun this issue into somehow Williamsburg should take a Spanish immersion program.

I don’t have a dog in this fight and it won’t affect my kids but if you people get your way it will be a real exhibit for APS’s dysfunction.

Stop listening to the self-interested parents APS. They are dogged and will never quit. Ultimate entitled behavior.

Because the Immersion “Visioning” team isn’t self interested at all.

Everyone agrees they need to leave Gunston. They'd probably rather stay at Gunston and kick out the neighborhood kids. That would be self-interest.

Instead you all want to move them to the complete opposite end of the County where their program is pretty sure to fail over time. And then if the current and future students don't try hard enough to get there this proves the program was a waste of time and people didn't really want to go all that much. That's the actual argument!!

And the main reason is you don't want Boopsy and Schmoospy to be separated from even some of their friends or have to ride a bus.

It's pretty fantastic to watch though.

It's not fantastic if they are derailing a plan that makes sense in the long run for their kid to finish 3 years at Hamm and then they don't care at ALL what happen to the families left in their wake.

You are so uninformed. The elementary school parents are the ones upset not current middle school parents. Because students will now be bused to far away WMS rather than the closer local middle school in perpetuity.

This isn’t a “it will go away problem”. The impacted Hamm and Swanson family will campaign against this idiotic boundary for decades. I know parents with kids in diaper who are up in arms.

Really? I am a current Swanson family with a kid in elementary as well that would likely be moved to Williamsburg. The Swanson kids who would move are not even very close to Swanson. Williamsburg is also close to us. I genuinely do not care and have not heard of one person who does.

I think it’s the Hamm people freaking out. Meanwhile they used to bus to Swanson and/or Williamsburg. It’s just not that big of a deal.

Let’s see they were denied a local neighborhood school by an option program for decades, and they finally championed to get their own neighborhood middle school and now another option program is kicking them out. I can see why this would make a neighborhood unhappy. I would worry that instead of champion a local middle school, they would redirect their ire to abolishing options in general

This is hilarious. An option program moving from one school that is not Hamm to another school that is also not Hamm is what’s “kicking them out” of Hamm.

[Anonymous]

I really love how if I advocate for my kid, I’m entitled, but everyone else advocating for their kids are just doing what’s best for the community.

If this were happening to you, you’d do the same thing. Such hypocrisy on this board.

[Anonymous]

This all feels like another sign the immersion program isn't going to make it.

We turned down our neighborhood school and another lottery school at the start of K because we thought immersion was the way to go for our family. I have been second guessing myself for awhile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It should go to Williamsburg, if they really project the school to be permanently under-enrolled. Otherwise Kenmore. If Hispanics value the program they will put their kids on the bus to follow the option program, as they will do for ATS and HB. If they don't value it, the program could be downsized. Spanish immersion is overemphasized at the moment. There is another thread where many, many families are reporting significant academic problems after years in immersion. I think the trends will not support two elementary schools and very large MS and HS programs going forward.

This! As an immersion family (for now at least) we are seeing more and more concerns about fundamental issues with the program starting in elementary. I'm intrigued to see what the new 80/20 learning style will do for the new kindergarten class which one of our kiddos is in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This all feels like another sign the immersion program isn't going to make it.

We turned down our neighborhood school and another lottery school at the start of K because we thought immersion was the way to go for our family. I have been second guessing myself for awhile.

I don't get why people think this. The county and the schools in the past few years has been making huge strides to improve the immersion program. They got a new spanish curriculum, they moved to an 80/20 model, they started outreach to hispanic neighborhoods, they created a task force which made a number of recommendations that the county then adopted. They created new Spanish assessments to better evaluate where kids are. Basically, they have done a million things to support the program lately. They are now moving it out of an overcrowded school to a school with a higher hispanic population and new facilities. WHY is that a sign that the program is not going to make it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think there is an idea that moving to a more centralized location. Which some have deemed kenmore to be they will attract more Key families to continue with Immersion. We are Claremont, I know maybe 10 families that left immersion. I heard with key nearly 50% of families left immersion this year. Gunston is mainly Claremont families supposedly..

Some key parents said they don't go to gunston due to location but I think everyone ignores the elephant in the room for not going to Gunston. One that Kenmore won't solve.

Exactly NA families at Key aren’t sending their kids to KENMORE.

WMS would be a BIG draw for immersion from SA families too.

I am a SA Immersion family and WMS has NO draw for me.

SA immersion family here and we would much rather be at WMS than Kenmore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This all feels like another sign the immersion program isn't going to make it.

We turned down our neighborhood school and another lottery school at the start of K because we thought immersion was the way to go for our family. I have been second guessing myself for awhile.

I don't get why people think this. The county and the schools in the past few years has been making huge strides to improve the immersion program. They got a new spanish curriculum, they moved to an 80/20 model, they started outreach to hispanic neighborhoods, they created a task force which made a number of recommendations that the county then adopted. They created new Spanish assessments to better evaluate where kids are. Basically, they have done a million things to support the program lately. They are now moving it out of an overcrowded school to a school with a higher hispanic population and new facilities. WHY is that a sign that the program is not going to make it?

I am not PP. Not sure if those million things they started to do is going to fix some of the kids who are in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th grade who started under a different curriculum and have had to (if they are lucky enough) get extra support, tutors and go through summer school to try and catch up to grade level. I have zero data to prove it, I just know multiple families along with ours, who have had to provide a lot of extra support over the years. Some have left and some will leave after 5th because of it. Hopefully getting rid of the old curriculum and how they were teaching reading will help along with the 80/20 model. I don't think the program isn't going to make it but there's a lot of feedback from families who are not thrilled with the program. Maybe it's just the circle I'm in or our school, like I said, I don't have data. Just experience with the families I know who attend Immersion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This all feels like another sign the immersion program isn't going to make it.

We turned down our neighborhood school and another lottery school at the start of K because we thought immersion was the way to go for our family. I have been second guessing myself for awhile.

I don't get why people think this. The county and the schools in the past few years has been making huge strides to improve the immersion program. They got a new spanish curriculum, they moved to an 80/20 model, they started outreach to hispanic neighborhoods, they created a task force which made a number of recommendations that the county then adopted. They created new Spanish assessments to better evaluate where kids are. Basically, they have done a million things to support the program lately. They are now moving it out of an overcrowded school to a school with a higher hispanic population and new facilities. WHY is that a sign that the program is not going to make it?

I am not PP. Not sure if those million things they started to do is going to fix some of the kids who are in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th grade who started under a different curriculum and have had to (if they are lucky enough) get extra support, tutors and go through summer school to try and catch up to grade level. I have zero data to prove it, I just know multiple families along with ours, who have had to provide a lot of extra support over the years. Some have left and some will leave after 5th because of it. Hopefully getting rid of the old curriculum and how they were teaching reading will help along with the 80/20 model. I don't think the program isn't going to make it but there's a lot of feedback from families who are not thrilled with the program. Maybe it's just the circle I'm in or our school, like I said, I don't have data. Just experience with the families I know who attend Immersion.

Surely I will be torched--but, I mean, the elephant in the room here to me is the time spent in virtual school for immersion kids. I would suggest that the immersion program is theoretically the most rigorous elementary program in APS because kids are working to learn all foundational concepts in two languages. And yet, from where I sit, with a 4th grader (who was in kinder when Covid hit) in one of the immersion programs, there has been ZERO dedicated effort to provide any additional support to these kids from the school system. We have supplemented across the board for several years--and yes, this is a privilege, but, our DC is still struggling. And what about all of the kids who cannot independently access additional support? I've advocated to the school board and also emailed our school principal and raised the subject at the school, but, all I get is crickets and nothing changing.

[Anonymous]

Did WMS come up as an option from APS or someone on here? I'm trying to follow all this so I know what the heck is going on. Ha-Ha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This all feels like another sign the immersion program isn't going to make it.

We turned down our neighborhood school and another lottery school at the start of K because we thought immersion was the way to go for our family. I have been second guessing myself for awhile.

I don't get why people think this. The county and the schools in the past few years has been making huge strides to improve the immersion program. They got a new spanish curriculum, they moved to an 80/20 model, they started outreach to hispanic neighborhoods, they created a task force which made a number of recommendations that the county then adopted. They created new Spanish assessments to better evaluate where kids are. Basically, they have done a million things to support the program lately. They are now moving it out of an overcrowded school to a school with a higher hispanic population and new facilities. WHY is that a sign that the program is not going to make it?

I am not PP. Not sure if those million things they started to do is going to fix some of the kids who are in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th grade who started under a different curriculum and have had to (if they are lucky enough) get extra support, tutors and go through summer school to try and catch up to grade level. I have zero data to prove it, I just know multiple families along with ours, who have had to provide a lot of extra support over the years. Some have left and some will leave after 5th because of it. Hopefully getting rid of the old curriculum and how they were teaching reading will help along with the 80/20 model. I don't think the program isn't going to make it but there's a lot of feedback from families who are not thrilled with the program. Maybe it's just the circle I'm in or our school, like I said, I don't have data. Just experience with the families I know who attend Immersion.

I do think it might be your circle. I am in a different circle (I assume) and everyone I am friends with (and all my kids friends) love the school. My son is now in 6th. He has a core group of about 11 friends. One of them left immersion but I would say the rest of them are largely fluent. I think for every kid that struggles there are plenty of kids that do fine, but I also don't have data. I also do not know anyone that has gone to summer school. I am not sure from your post if you are talking about the English side of things or the Spanish when it comes to reading, but there were APS wide issues with the way reading was taught this is not specific to immersion. As far as Spanish. I do think the curriculum is improving and will hopefully continue to do so. But again, my son's friend's group is largely all English-speaking families and now all at least conversationally fluent. I think that a lot of schools in immersion or out have kids that need extra support with tutors from what I have read on this board. But i think families don't realize how much support they give to English without realizing it (reading books in English, doing simple math in baking in English. Anyway, I am not saying the program is perfect. There is always room for improvement. But I think for every kid struggling there is a kid doing great in the program. When we come to the SOL the immersion schools don't have abnormally low SOLs when compared to other schools so I don't know that there is a glaring problem specific to immersion. But again, who knows! As I said, I also only have my bubble to measure things from and its the opposite of your experience. Data would be lovely to have.

I do think there is a certain type of kid that does well in immersion and a certain that doesn't do well that way. I think that parents and schools would do better to recognize that. If your kid is struggling to learn in one language adding another is probably not the best idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This all feels like another sign the immersion program isn't going to make it.

We turned down our neighborhood school and another lottery school at the start of K because we thought immersion was the way to go for our family. I have been second guessing myself for awhile.

I don't get why people think this. The county and the schools in the past few years has been making huge strides to improve the immersion program. They got a new spanish curriculum, they moved to an 80/20 model, they started outreach to hispanic neighborhoods, they created a task force which made a number of recommendations that the county then adopted. They created new Spanish assessments to better evaluate where kids are. Basically, they have done a million things to support the program lately. They are now moving it out of an overcrowded school to a school with a higher hispanic population and new facilities. WHY is that a sign that the program is not going to make it?

I am not PP. Not sure if those million things they started to do is going to fix some of the kids who are in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th grade who started under a different curriculum and have had to (if they are lucky enough) get extra support, tutors and go through summer school to try and catch up to grade level. I have zero data to prove it, I just know multiple families along with ours, who have had to provide a lot of extra support over the years. Some have left and some will leave after 5th because of it. Hopefully getting rid of the old curriculum and how they were teaching reading will help along with the 80/20 model. I don't think the program isn't going to make it but there's a lot of feedback from families who are not thrilled with the program. Maybe it's just the circle I'm in or our school, like I said, I don't have data. Just experience with the families I know who attend Immersion.

Surely I will be torched--but, I mean, the elephant in the room here to me is the time spent in virtual school for immersion kids. I would suggest that the immersion program is theoretically the most rigorous elementary program in APS because kids are working to learn all foundational concepts in two languages. And yet, from where I sit, with a 4th grader (who was in kinder when Covid hit) in one of the immersion programs, there has been ZERO dedicated effort to provide any additional support to these kids from the school system. We have supplemented across the board for several years--and yes, this is a privilege, but, our DC is still struggling. And what about all of the kids who cannot independently access additional support? I've advocated to the school board and also emailed our school principal and raised the subject at the school, but, all I get is crickets and nothing changing.

Oh I 100% agree that virtual education was a disaster for everything but an additional disaster for acquiring a new language.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Honestly? I think it was because immersion parents sent a large list of questions including pointing out some inaccurate data re: transportation Friday or Thursday and they likely needed time to answer questions and correct the data

So are current immersion parents opposed to the potential move?

Not most of the ones I've talked to, and they run the gamut of kids currently in middle and ones who will be impacted by this move. Some aren't super happy about current 6th graders moving schools for 8th grade, but at the same time they realize it's not a reason to stall it.

I suspect the Hamm/Williamsburg parents throwing tantrums about their boundaries being moved have maybe been louder than "eh fine" from the Immersion community. That would be unfortunate.

Why? If immersion parents don’t really care where their OPTION program is located, then the county should listen to “neighborhood schools” and let them actually attend the schools in their neighborhoods.

Because Williamsburg's boundaries should be re-drawn as it's under capacity. This will effect Hamm. It's just part of life in Arlington, it's a constant juggle to utilize resources. The ONLY reason those parents are fighting the Immersion move is because it's being coupled with their boundaries being re-drawn. It's the classic Arlington fight. No one wants their schools to change ever. And yet, it needs to happen. But the current parents will fight tooth and nail to stop something until their kid isn't going to be effected, and then they don't care one bit. That's not how we should decide things.

APS has explicitly tied moving immersion with the middle school boundary process. It's in the Pre-CIP. Look at page A-111 (pg 153 of the PDF). There is a table trying to justify why moving immersion to Kenmore will cause less disturbance overall than leaving it at Gunston. They conveniently did not include a column showing the impact of moving it to Williamsburg because that's the scenario that actually impacts the fewest students.

Except for the students currently in the immersion program -- moving a Spanish immersion program to a corner of the county with very few native Speakers would almost certainly have a detrimental effect. Williamsburg is not on the table because it is not an option that would work with the school's focus.

Exactly what would be the detrimental effect? Moving the middle school program would mean moving families who are already entrenched in the program having invested in sending their kids to immersion programming since kindergarten presumably. Further, the breakdown of Hispanic to non-Hispanic in the immersion program is targeted at 50%/50%. It is not as though the entire immersion program is Hispanic. Have you engaged the Hispanic community on the matter? Or are you just assuming. Further, per Great Schools, Williamsburg' demographics is currently at 12% Hispanic population. Last, there are plenty of ethnic pockets all over NOVA. That's how it goes in dense urban areas. Frankly, I think it would go a long way to shake up and break down the disparities between N and S Arlington to relocate the program to a school like Williamsburg.

Different poster than the one you are responding to, but you really don't see a problem with sending a large group of students from one end of the county to another? Do you actually want parents involved in their child's education, or just the parents who live close enough to Williamsburg that they can make it to school events without a SAHP?

Because it's an option program, there is already not any sort of absolute expectation that the school will be located in proximity to any attendee's household. Your argument feels like a red herring, PP.

When we first looked at immersion we absolutely looked at the locations of the ES, MS, and HS to see if we could commit to making all of those locations work given where we live.

[Anonymous]

Of the 8 NA families I knew with a 5th grader at Key last year, all left to immersion for 6th grade. Most are at their neighborhood middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This all feels like another sign the immersion program isn't going to make it.

We turned down our neighborhood school and another lottery school at the start of K because we thought immersion was the way to go for our family. I have been second guessing myself for awhile.

I don't get why people think this. The county and the schools in the past few years has been making huge strides to improve the immersion program. They got a new spanish curriculum, they moved to an 80/20 model, they started outreach to hispanic neighborhoods, they created a task force which made a number of recommendations that the county then adopted. They created new Spanish assessments to better evaluate where kids are. Basically, they have done a million things to support the program lately. They are now moving it out of an overcrowded school to a school with a higher hispanic population and new facilities. WHY is that a sign that the program is not going to make it?

I am not PP. Not sure if those million things they started to do is going to fix some of the kids who are in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th grade who started under a different curriculum and have had to (if they are lucky enough) get extra support, tutors and go through summer school to try and catch up to grade level. I have zero data to prove it, I just know multiple families along with ours, who have had to provide a lot of extra support over the years. Some have left and some will leave after 5th because of it. Hopefully getting rid of the old curriculum and how they were teaching reading will help along with the 80/20 model. I don't think the program isn't going to make it but there's a lot of feedback from families who are not thrilled with the program. Maybe it's just the circle I'm in or our school, like I said, I don't have data. Just experience with the families I know who attend Immersion.

I do think it might be your circle. I am in a different circle (I assume) and everyone I am friends with (and all my kids friends) love the school. My son is now in 6th. He has a core group of about 11 friends. One of them left immersion but I would say the rest of them are largely fluent. I think for every kid that struggles there are plenty of kids that do fine, but I also don't have data. I also do not know anyone that has gone to summer school. I am not sure from your post if you are talking about the English side of things or the Spanish when it comes to reading, but there were APS wide issues with the way reading was taught this is not specific to immersion. As far as Spanish. I do think the curriculum is improving and will hopefully continue to do so. But again, my son's friend's group is largely all English-speaking families and now all at least conversationally fluent. I think that a lot of schools in immersion or out have kids that need extra support with tutors from what I have read on this board. But i think families don't realize how much support they give to English without realizing it (reading books in English, doing simple math in baking in English. Anyway, I am not saying the program is perfect. There is always room for improvement. But I think for every kid struggling there is a kid doing great in the program. When we come to the SOL the immersion schools don't have abnormally low SOLs when compared to other schools so I don't know that there is a glaring problem specific to immersion. But again, who knows! As I said, I also only have my bubble to measure things from and its the opposite of your experience. Data would be lovely to have.

I do think there is a certain type of kid that does well in immersion and a certain that doesn't do well that way. I think that parents and schools would do better to recognize that. If your kid is struggling to learn in one language adding another is probably not the best idea.

Totally agree there are plenty of kids thriving for every child that is having issues. And it does take a certain type of child to be successful in Immersion and not all kids will fall into that category. We will not be continuing the program after elementary. And just to note, there were definitely elementary kids that had to do summer school from the Immersion program. Mine was one of them. Oddly enough, they did not provide summer school in Spanish even though what qualified them for it was in Spanish.