What happens to immersion programs with new regional programs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of this matters unless you’re in a Chinese immersion. MCPS confirmed Chinese would be the only WL option in the new Regional Program Services model.

That's for high school.

Middle school immersion and all middle school magnet programs are TBD until they figure out whether middle schools are going to have to drop down to only one elective period a year to meet the state requirement for 60 minutes a day of math-- they will reassess after that but I suspect will just cut all the immersion and magnet programs if the state mandate stands. (Or maybe magnets will stay if they can find enough kids willing to skip all foreign language, music, arts, or other electives in order to be in a magnet and use their only elective spot for a magnet elective. That would probably solve the problem of there being way more interested kids than spaces available...)

With the state plan for MS requiring 300 minutes/week I'm not sure that there is time for even 6 equally timed periods. In that case, elective (or magnet-class) scheduling may be reduced to half periods.

Even apart from implications to magnet programs, this seems so crazy I keep thinking surely this won't end up happening. But maybe that's wishful thinking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of this matters unless you’re in a Chinese immersion. MCPS confirmed Chinese would be the only WL option in the new Regional Program Services model.

That's for high school.

Middle school immersion and all middle school magnet programs are TBD until they figure out whether middle schools are going to have to drop down to only one elective period a year to meet the state requirement for 60 minutes a day of math-- they will reassess after that but I suspect will just cut all the immersion and magnet programs if the state mandate stands. (Or maybe magnets will stay if they can find enough kids willing to skip all foreign language, music, arts, or other electives in order to be in a magnet and use their only elective spot for a magnet elective. That would probably solve the problem of there being way more interested kids than spaces available...)

With the state plan for MS requiring 300 minutes/week I'm not sure that there is time for even 6 equally timed periods. In that case, elective (or magnet-class) scheduling may be reduced to half periods.

Even apart from implications to magnet programs, this seems so crazy I keep thinking surely this won't end up happening. But maybe that's wishful thinking.

Apparently other districts do it already, and MCPS hasn't complained to MSDE to ask them to change it. So unless MCPS changes course and requests some flexibility on this, I think we're screwed, unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of this matters unless you’re in a Chinese immersion. MCPS confirmed Chinese would be the only WL option in the new Regional Program Services model.

That's for high school.

Middle school immersion and all middle school magnet programs are TBD until they figure out whether middle schools are going to have to drop down to only one elective period a year to meet the state requirement for 60 minutes a day of math-- they will reassess after that but I suspect will just cut all the immersion and magnet programs if the state mandate stands. (Or maybe magnets will stay if they can find enough kids willing to skip all foreign language, music, arts, or other electives in order to be in a magnet and use their only elective spot for a magnet elective. That would probably solve the problem of there being way more interested kids than spaces available...)

With the state plan for MS requiring 300 minutes/week I'm not sure that there is time for even 6 equally timed periods. In that case, elective (or magnet-class) scheduling may be reduced to half periods.

Even apart from implications to magnet programs, this seems so crazy I keep thinking surely this won't end up happening. But maybe that's wishful thinking.

Apparently other districts do it already, and MCPS hasn't complained to MSDE to ask them to change it. So unless MCPS changes course and requests some flexibility on this, I think we're screwed, unfortunately.

Thanks for that info. Do you know an example of a district that does this? -- I'd love to see what it could look like.

[Anonymous]

Multiple teachers I’ve talked to have said “yes, you could find a way to still have immersion programs,” even with the state law changes. It requires some effort on the scheduling side, no doubt. I fear more that MCPS is going to use the state law change to just gut the programs is my fear (and others too). But let’s be clear - it would be MCPS fault if that were to happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is in an elementary language immersion program in a school that is not in our region in any of the proposed models. Further, the middle school they feed into is also not in our region.

Has anyone seen any information on what is going to happen to kids who are supposed to be going into middle school the year the regional model is implemented?

Won't be applicable to me, but what about the younger elementary immersion kids? Do they get to stay in their ES?

I’m sorry but why you would you even put your kid in this situation? Lemme guess you’re a white family bussing your kid away from your majority Hispanic home ES to learn Spanish somewhere else in the county on MY dime?!?

There are no immersion HS in MCPS so if you are trying it in ES you must think you’re gaining the system somehow. Dot he research and stop complaining here

lol. amazing.

You are making quite an assumption here. My home ES is 36% white with 22% FARMS, and my child's immersion school is 16% white with 44% FARMS.

What I am trying to do is avoid having my child start 6th grade next year in their immersion feeder middle school (White Oak MS) and then be forced to change to a different middle school the next year--either back to our non-immersion home middle school or to the immersion middle school (Westland MS) which will be in our new region.

I am looking for consistency in where my child goes to school.

PP, we're in the same boat wondering what will happen to our DC's assignment to Spanish Immersion at White Oak MS. I wish there was more information on impacts to programs like these.

[Anonymous]

I hope they cut language immersion in elementary and middle schools. I would rather MCPS focus on the basics (general education, gifted education and special education)

Immersion can be done at the high school level with a MCPS summer study broad in sophomore, junior and senior levels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope they cut language immersion in elementary and middle schools. I would rather MCPS focus on the basics (general education, gifted education and special education)

Immersion can be done at the high school level with a MCPS summer study broad in sophomore, junior and senior levels.

Then they should cut all special programs to focus on the basics. There are so many programs, why stop at or target immersion?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope they cut language immersion in elementary and middle schools. I would rather MCPS focus on the basics (general education, gifted education and special education)

Immersion can be done at the high school level with a MCPS summer study broad in sophomore, junior and senior levels.

I agree with this. Participation is limited to the lucky few who got selected from the lottery.

At the MS or HS level, it should not be called immersion when students are just taking an elective. When I first learned about the program, I thought kids are taught science, history, etc in the specific world language. I think immersion should definitely be eliminated at the MS or HS level.

[Anonymous]

The resolution language for the regional programs gives Taylor broad latitude to change any secondary (not just HS) program he likes without board approval.

[Anonymous]

It's still immersion in middle school. At SSIMS, students have their immersion language class for 90 minutes a day as well as their social studies class in the target language. There is no high school immersion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they cut language immersion in elementary and middle schools. I would rather MCPS focus on the basics (general education, gifted education and special education)

Immersion can be done at the high school level with a MCPS summer study broad in sophomore, junior and senior levels.

I agree with this. Participation is limited to the lucky few who got selected from the lottery.

At the MS or HS level, it should not be called immersion when students are just taking an elective. When I first learned about the program, I thought kids are taught science, history, etc in the specific world language. I think immersion should definitely be eliminated at the MS or HS level.

Why? Because participation is limited to the lucky few who lottery in? Immersion is lottery based but a large number of applicants get a spot somewhere. There are 264 kindergarten spots and annually there are about 500-600 applicants for those spots. PLUS the waitlist moves considerably, for some programs more than others. Don't get me wrong -- the disappointment can be very real. And I think there may be better ways of running the lottery.

But.... most of the special programs at MCPS are limited. CES, middle school magnets are both lottery based. Should we cut everything that isn't open to all kids who are interested/qualified? Or does it make more sense to see what we can do to expand opportunities where possible?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's still immersion in middle school. At SSIMS, students have their immersion language class for 90 minutes a day as well as their social studies class in the target language. There is no high school immersion.

Yes, at SSIMS immersion is 3 out of 8 blocks, currently. Not sure about elsewhere. But it's immersion. A double language block plus social studies in the target language.