Yu Ying - advice please

[Anonymous]

A lot of kids at Yu Ying get tutoring in Mandarin on the weekends from teachers. They really do. I'm sure some parents take Mandarin seriously and some don't.

[Anonymous]

so, OP, did you make a decision. It's one of the reasons I don't play the lottery now that I'm at a good enough school - I don't want to make these kind of decisions between a good school and a potentially better or worse school (depending on the kid and fit)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh yeah, and Yu Ying voted best elementary school by City Paper yet again!

Because the school pushes YY parents to vote for the school in this meaningless poll. Most other schools don't care, so they don't inundate parents with requests to vote.

I agree that the results of the City Paper poll don't mean anything at all, but YY did not push parents to vote in it. As a YY parent, I learned about the poll when someone posted about the result to the PA listserv. The school has asked us to do things like advocate for charter funding by calling our council members and even to take part in a social media campaign to encourage the army to turn over the Walter Reed property so that they could begin building, but I've never seen a call to vote in an online poll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh yeah, and Yu Ying voted best elementary school by City Paper yet again!

Because the school pushes YY parents to vote for the school in this meaningless poll. Most other schools don't care, so they don't inundate parents with requests to vote.

I agree that the results of the City Paper poll don't mean anything at all, but YY did not push parents to vote in it. As a YY parent, I learned about the poll when someone posted about the result to the PA listserv. The school has asked us to do things like advocate for charter funding by calling our council members and even to take part in a social media campaign to encourage the army to turn over the Walter Reed property so that they could begin building, but I've never seen a call to vote in an online poll.

Yu Ying parent and the same for me. Not a single message (I saw at least) from the school getting us to vote in that poll. Most parents I know at Yu Ying feel very fortunate and lucky to be there so they do get excited about participating in these polls, as meaningless as they may be.

As to the OP's original question. I have a child in 4th and one in K (starting in Pre-K4 and Pre-K3 respectively) and I have been blown away by what a nurturing, loving community the school is from the teachers to the aftercare staff to the parents. I have a child who is a bit different than most and I worried a lot about how other kids would treat him, but the school creates such a welcoming, accepting environment that all kids are respected and appreciated. You asked about kindness and if there is one thing I can say about my kids and their friends is they are all so kind to each other.

As far as Mandarin goes, I wanted my children exposed to a second language. If they decide they love Chinese and want to pursue it more aggressively when they get older, great, they have a good foundation. If they want to study a different language, they will have a good foundation for learning foreign languages. If they decide they don't care about speaking other languages, then they have been exposed to thinking about the world from different perspectives and cultures. I think my 4th grader speaks and understands quite well. He can carry on long conversations with friends/relatives that speak Chinese. Sure, they could think he is rubbish and are just being nice when they say he speaks well. But that doesn't matter, what matters is building his confidence to be a risk taker and communicate with people different from him, even if he feels vulnerable, and building curiosity about the world.

The IB PYP program underscores all of these lessons and that is what I've found to be the best part of Yu Ying.