Oyster relocating?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ Hate to brake it to you, but that standard represents an ideal that simply does not exist. I live in a Latino apartment building with immigrant families. The adults all speak Spanish. The kids still speak English. They may have been truly spanish dominant as infants and toddlers, but by preschool age, they're surprisingly English dom. I don't understand it myself, but it is what it is. Maybe Oyster should focus on attracting speakers with native fluency, regardless of how they achieved it. Clearly if some American family is resourceful enough that they're kids can pass a test checking for native fluency in Spanish, they bring something to the table- the ability to foster and support Spanish fluency. Isn't that the goal to begin with?

However, bilingual kids who come from Spanish speaking homes (even if they prefer to speak English) bring vocabulary and cultural references/experiences that bilingual children (from English speaking homes) simply do not have in their background. I would much rather have the bilingual child from a Spanish speaking home occupying those “Spanish dominant” seats, than a bilingual child from an English speaking home. My child will learn much more that way.

How do you know what a bilingual kid from an English household has in their background? I'm Peruvian and only speak Spanish to my grandparents. My husband who learned Spanish in college uses his Spanish more than me and, I hate to say, is much better than I am. Trust me, you want your child to learn from him versus me and I'm the "native" Latina. See what happens when you stereotype? You misjudge. Be careful with that.

I stand by what I said. I don’t want my child to learn Spanish from your husband at all—I don’t care how good his college-learned Spanish is now. And I don’t want my child to learn from you either since your Spanish is, admittedly, not as good as your husband’s Spanish. I would PREFER for MY child to (ideally) attend school with the children (occupying those Spanish-dominant seats) of two native Spanish speaking parents who speak the language well. That is not what my child is currently receiving at Oyster, but that is my preference. I don’t know if my ideal can/will be achieved, but there is room for improvement and it’s within the principal’s grasp if she is truly willing to improve the school.

[Anonymous]

^^ good thing you don't get to chose! My kid is in as Spanish dom. So there! To double piss you off, my neighbor's American kid who learned Spanish in preschool is in as Span. Dom. too. Both kids speak flawless Spanish (way better than me). Don't hate 'em, congratulate 'em!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I stand by what I said. I don’t want my child to learn Spanish from your husband at all—I don’t care how good his college-learned Spanish is now. And I don’t want my child to learn from you either since your Spanish is, admittedly, not as good as your husband’s Spanish. I would PREFER for MY child to (ideally) attend school with the children (occupying those Spanish-dominant seats) of two native Spanish speaking parents who speak the language well. That is not what my child is currently receiving at Oyster, but that is my preference. I don’t know if my ideal can/will be achieved, but there is room for improvement and it’s within the principal’s grasp if she is truly willing to improve the school.

Wow. The one thing your child will definitely learn at O-A is that labels like "language dominance" are inaccurate, at best, and easily twisted into disrespect and prejudice. You can't, nor should you, judge a 6 year old by their last name, skin tone, their accent, or what you think you heard them say. Immigrants in an elevator? Give me a break. Did you check their papers?

If you want native-level, fully educated, bi-literate and bilingual parents to teach (as opposed to teachers) perfect Spanish to your child, then move to Spain-better yet Colombia- and go to a private school.

In the meantime, get over yourself and find another school. You will never be able to appreciate the families at O-A, or most bilingual schools, with that attitude.

Coño, que pesada.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ good thing you don't get to chose! My kid is in as Spanish dom. So there! To double piss you off, my neighbor's American kid who learned Spanish in preschool is in as Span. Dom. too. Both kids speak flawless Spanish (way better than me). Don't hate 'em, congratulate 'em!

Thanks--you've just made my point! That's why Oyster won't be allowed to move. There is a language balance issue there b/c the principal won't enforce the rules. There will be a language balance issue at any school where she's principal: neighborhood DCPS, charter, citywide magnet...it doesnt matter. Different location, same problem.

Btw, I'm not pissed at all. You don't have many good options, so do whatever you can to try to get by/over. It's the principal's job to stop dishonest parents like your neighbor. I get to walk my kid to school from my nice house in my nice neighborhood (I can do smug very well, thank you), and I didn't have to lie to get in. Plus, my kid's Spanish is perfect with a native accent. No worries here, life is good. Don't hate me, congratulate me!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I stand by what I said. I don’t want my child to learn Spanish from your husband at all—I don’t care how good his college-learned Spanish is now. And I don’t want my child to learn from you either since your Spanish is, admittedly, not as good as your husband’s Spanish. I would PREFER for MY child to (ideally) attend school with the children (occupying those Spanish-dominant seats) of two native Spanish speaking parents who speak the language well. That is not what my child is currently receiving at Oyster, but that is my preference. I don’t know if my ideal can/will be achieved, but there is room for improvement and it’s within the principal’s grasp if she is truly willing to improve the school.

Wow. The one thing your child will definitely learn at O-A is that labels like "language dominance" are inaccurate, at best, and easily twisted into disrespect and prejudice. You can't, nor should you, judge a 6 year old by their last name, skin tone, their accent, or what you think you heard them say. Immigrants in an elevator? Give me a break. Did you check their papers?


What the hell are you talking about?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I'm also an outside observer with no stake in this, but I see an argument with the above: most of the non-Spanish kids start Oyster in K. Only a handful get in during pre-K, and there is no PS program. So at most you would be giving the English-dominant kids one year of full immersion, with a few possibly getting two.

That's a really good point. Tough situation, with the demographics moving against you.

Actually, quite a few of Oyster's IB English-dominant kids are bilingual (like my DC) from having attended a Spanish immersion preschool for years. So when my child arrived in K, she had already received 4 years of Spanish instruction/immersion. This fall’s PK class will have 25 Spanish-dom. kids (out of 35). Oyster’s three K classes usually total 75 kids (25/classroom). If you have 25 rising K Span-dom. kids (from the aforementioned PK class), plus 5 more added in K, then you have 30 Spanish-dom. kids out of 75 (that’s 40% Spanish-dom). Included in that 75 K class will be at least 10 kids like mine (bilingual, but they come from an English speaking home). So now, you have AT LEAST 40 Spanish-dom and bilingual kids—that’s 53% (better than 50/50) of the K class that speaks and understands the target language. If you make Oyster full immersion for PK and K, that should be all you need to tip the scales. Show me the will (on Oyster’s part), and I’ll show you the way.

My kid is already in so we’re fine either way. I just think that moving the school is a bad idea for Oyster. No other immersion school in DC (charter or DCPS) can touch Oyster’s test scores. That fact is not unrelated to the predominately affluent, well-educated IB (both English and Spanish dom.) families who send their well-prepared children to Oyster. If you eliminate that important (but often overlooked) ingredient, watch the test scores slide as well (to say nothing of the fundraising).

Good post. One question, how many of the 25 PK4 kids admitted in the Spanish lottery only (or predominantly) speak Spanish? I think that's a big part of it to, as some other posters alluded to. I think there are quite a few kids who would pass a Spanish language speaking test, but are still more comfortable speaking in English, so that's what they default to if they aren't forced to speak Spanish. I say that because the other day I noticed a fully bilingual parent I know, speaking totally in Spanish to their child, who understood everything and responded solely in English. This is a kid with one fully bilingual parent, and one parent who speaks pretty good English but probably speaks Spanish 90% of the time. If a kid like that speaks English to their English-only peers, those kids won't get the Spanish they need.

A lot of this is related to income levels, as you said. There are a number of truly bilingual adults in the OA area, who speak perfect English because of their educational background. Their kids get into the PK4 Spanish lottery, and are fluent in Spanish, but don't really speak it to their peers.

Not trying to advocate one way or the other (earlier outsider poster), just trying to understand the dynamics at play. From what I can see, it's really tough to match up an immersion model that relies on some control of admissions, with a "by right" neighborhood school.

Those are good points, but in fact the school already has a lot of control over admissions. The problem is that it is choosing to use that control AGAINST Spanish-speakers.

From what I can see in the survey in their website, 37% of all kids are out-boundary English-dom. Since very few out-boundary English-dom kids get to O-A via the lottery, those must be kids who started as in-boundary but then moved out, AND their siblings.

Can someone please explain to me why, if the school has a huge waitlist of out-boundary Spanish-dom kids, why it is giving so many spots to out-boundary English-dom kids? Does the fact that my older English-dom brother lived in Woodley Park 5 years ago give me the right to enter O-A next year in K, despite living in Bethesda now and only speaking English? Why can I secure a spot while my Spanish-dom neighbor can't even dream of it?

It seems to me that O-A leaders care much more about friends and siblings than about Spanish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ good thing you don't get to chose! My kid is in as Spanish dom. So there! To double piss you off, my neighbor's American kid who learned Spanish in preschool is in as Span. Dom. too. Both kids speak flawless Spanish (way better than me). Don't hate 'em, congratulate 'em!

Thanks--you've just made my point! That's why Oyster won't be allowed to move. There is a language balance issue there b/c the principal won't enforce the rules. There will be a language balance issue at any school where she's principal: neighborhood DCPS, charter, citywide magnet...it doesnt matter. Different location, same problem.

Btw, I'm not pissed at all. You don't have many good options, so do whatever you can to try to get by/over. It's the principal's job to stop dishonest parents like your neighbor. I get to walk my kid to school from my nice house in my nice neighborhood (I can do smug very well, thank you), and I didn't have to lie to get in. Plus, my kid's Spanish is perfect with a native accent. No worries here, life is good. Don't hate me, congratulate me!

Racist much? I think karma hates you, but we'll have to wait to see about that, won't we?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
It seems to me that O-A leaders care much more about friends and siblings than about Spanish.

THIS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It seems to me that O-A leaders care much more about friends and siblings than about Spanish.

THIS.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It seems to me that O-A leaders care much more about friends and siblings than about Spanish.

THIS.

+1

Has anyone also heard that Janney is thinking about relocating to Georgetown, and Wilson to Columbia Heights?


(They haven't - just a thought-experiment so we can have as much fun as Oyster administrators seem to be having)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ good thing you don't get to chose! My kid is in as Spanish dom. So there! To double piss you off, my neighbor's American kid who learned Spanish in preschool is in as Span. Dom. too. Both kids speak flawless Spanish (way better than me). Don't hate 'em, congratulate 'em!

Thanks--you've just made my point! That's why Oyster won't be allowed to move. There is a language balance issue there b/c the principal won't enforce the rules. There will be a language balance issue at any school where she's principal: neighborhood DCPS, charter, citywide magnet...it doesnt matter. Different location, same problem.

Btw, I'm not pissed at all. You don't have many good options, so do whatever you can to try to get by/over. It's the principal's job to stop dishonest parents like your neighbor. I get to walk my kid to school from my nice house in my nice neighborhood (I can do smug very well, thank you), and I didn't have to lie to get in. Plus, my kid's Spanish is perfect with a native accent. No worries here, life is good. Don't hate me, congratulate me!

Smug, yes - but why? Your choice of words is so very lower middle-class.

I'm an NP, reading the thread for amusement. Your post made me chuckle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: the SD rule at Oyster (google it—the definition for SD at Oyster does exist),

Is this the OA rule for Spanish dominant? It's what I found, and looks right.

"A child is considered "Spanish-dominant" if his or her native tongue is Spanish,
meaning that Spanish is the principal language spoken in the child's home and the child is
demonstrably more comfortable speaking Spanish than speaking any other language. In
addition, to be considered "Spanish-dominant" a child must demonstrate age-appropriate
language and linguistic development in Spanish.”

This is very interesting to me, because we come from a mixed family (parents both fluent in Spanish, only one native speaker), but deliberately only had Spanish speaking (no English) nannies because we wanted our kids to be bilingual. So Spanish was NOT the principal language spoken in our home when we were home, although certainly our child had "age-appropriate and linguistic development in Spanish". What made me so happy was that Early Intervention (child was a preemie, no lasting problems) identified dc2 as Spanish dominant. Once my kids started their English only schools, they continued to understand Spanish but would answer in English unless corrected. Including to the nanny and me (and we both continued to speak to them exclusively in Spanish). Then they started to forget it once they moved on to K and full time school and we let go of our child care. Had they started Oyster early that would not have happened, just not an option for us.

But my oldest dc, who has now completed two years of Latin first at Washington Latin and then Basis this year, will be taking Spanish next year as a non-native speaker (at BASIS they also have a track for native speakers who don't know how to read and write Spanish or Chinese, which was the case with my dh who grew up partially in his native Latin American country, with Spanish as a first language, but you would never know it now.)

And even after two years of Latin, dc1's Spanish has come back and is more grammatically correct. We have high hopes because it was basically the first language, and the only one spoken by dcs caretakers until they all went to preschool. I really admire you all who had the wherewithal to get your kids into bilingual schools. We did what we could, and the studies show that if a child speaks any two languages before a certain age (6?7?) it alters the neurotransmitters in their brains so that they can pick up the old native language they lost, or that one and another easier than monolingual children. My dc did really well in Mandarin when it was offered as an extracurric at her DCPS, and Latin (the language) has been a breeze, I think partially because of her prior Spanish.

So I just wanted to say that definitions aren't everything. Had we started at Oyster, we would not have qualified technically as Spanish dominant, even though that is what our kids were at that time.

I know nothing about the principal and her possible ulterior motives or whatever. I just wanted to say that technical definitions are not everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: the SD rule at Oyster (google it—the definition for SD at Oyster does exist),

Is this the OA rule for Spanish dominant? It's what I found, and looks right.

"A child is considered "Spanish-dominant" if his or her native tongue is Spanish,
meaning that Spanish is the principal language spoken in the child's home and the child is
demonstrably more comfortable speaking Spanish than speaking any other language. In
addition, to be considered "Spanish-dominant" a child must demonstrate age-appropriate
language and linguistic development in Spanish.”

This is very interesting to me, because we come from a mixed family (parents both fluent in Spanish, only one native speaker), but deliberately only had Spanish speaking (no English) nannies because we wanted our kids to be bilingual. So Spanish was NOT the principal language spoken in our home when we were home, although certainly our child had "age-appropriate and linguistic development in Spanish". What made me so happy was that Early Intervention (child was a preemie, no lasting problems) identified dc2 as Spanish dominant. Once my kids started their English only schools, they continued to understand Spanish but would answer in English unless corrected. Including to the nanny and me (and we both continued to speak to them exclusively in Spanish). Then they started to forget it once they moved on to K and full time school and we let go of our child care. Had they started Oyster early that would not have happened, just not an option for us.

But my oldest dc, who has now completed two years of Latin first at Washington Latin and then Basis this year, will be taking Spanish next year as a non-native speaker (at BASIS they also have a track for native speakers who don't know how to read and write Spanish or Chinese, which was the case with my dh who grew up partially in his native Latin American country, with Spanish as a first language, but you would never know it now.)

And even after two years of Latin, dc1's Spanish has come back and is more grammatically correct. We have high hopes because it was basically the first language, and the only one spoken by dcs caretakers until they all went to preschool. I really admire you all who had the wherewithal to get your kids into bilingual schools. We did what we could, and the studies show that if a child speaks any two languages before a certain age (6?7?) it alters the neurotransmitters in their brains so that they can pick up the old native language they lost, or that one and another easier than monolingual children. My dc did really well in Mandarin when it was offered as an extracurric at her DCPS, and Latin (the language) has been a breeze, I think partially because of her prior Spanish.

So I just wanted to say that definitions aren't everything. Had we started at Oyster, we would not have qualified technically as Spanish dominant, even though that is what our kids were at that time.

I know nothing about the principal and her possible ulterior motives or whatever. I just wanted to say that technical definitions are not everything.

Why do you think that your children would not have qualified as Spanish dominant? I don't think that's the case.. Btw, if both you and your husband are fluent, why didn't you speak Spanish to your children? No judgement, I'm just curious since you both went through the extra effort of hiring only Spanish speaking caregivers.

[Anonymous]

Oyster uses Spanish education as an excuse for why the other subject areas are mediocre and watered down. I would love for Spanish to no longer serve as the proxy for mediocre.

If the leadership can't right this ship in this location, I shudder to think what it would be like in a new one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oyster uses Spanish education as an excuse for why the other subject areas are mediocre and watered down. I would love for Spanish to no longer serve as the proxy for mediocre.

If the leadership can't right this ship in this location, I shudder to think what it would be like in a new one.

+1.