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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]First time poster.  My son is a rising 1st grader at OTES so he was in the pilot year of Spanish immersion.  Like most of the PPs we felt and still feel so lucky to have gotten this giant perk.  First, you don't need to do anything to prepare your child.  My son came out of K with probably passable preschool level Spanish.  They learn a lot through songs, which is very fun to hear when they come home.  They learn the basics - letters, sounds, numbers, etc.  The Spanish teacher that my son had was very impressive.  It must be very hard to speak SOLELY in another language to first time kindergarteners!  Of course, some of the kids go in with Spanish as their native language, which is why this is a good community for a two-way immersion.

We WANTED to love this program and really really are hoping for the best in first grade.  We aren't the type to make waves or judge too quickly so we gave it the entire Kindergarten year.  And after talking to a lot of parents that I've gotten to know, this seems this has been the prevailing sentiment - people haven't known what to expect and wanted to give a lot of leeway for the first year of the program, but everyone has had the same observations....

There was zero communication from teachers.  Zero.  Including e-mails that often went unanswered until I followed up twice.  There was a complete stone wall about volunteering.  I signed up to volunteer and then followed up 3 times and was told no.  There was never any correspondence home and literally never an update on what the kids were doing in class.  This is my first child in elementary school so I  didn't know if I was expecting too much, but after talking to teachers in other schools I know that this is unusual.  I don't need a weekly or even monthly newsletter.  But we never ever heard from the teachers.  It's strange to send your 5 year old to Kindergarten all day and NEVER hear what they are up to.  And frustrating when you have a small concern or even question and don't get a response.  I have a friend who e-mailed the teacher about her child's epi-pen and never heard back.

I didn't want to rock the boat and I'm not up the teachers asses or anything.  But it was a very very disengaged year.  My son came home happy.  He made friends, liked his teachers, and learned Spanish.  But I'm surprised because I heard it was such an engaged community and we as parents were not involved at all, even when we tried.

I have chalked Kindergarten up to a wash.  It doesn't matter anyway, my son is academically fine, and I do understand that it must be quite the endeavor to start a new program.

That said, at least for his grade, its going to be a huge upheaval every single year.  There are 3 new teachers teaching 1st grade this year because of course they need Spanish certified teachers.  Each year he moves up, multiple teachers will have to move out.  In this sense, there is no comparing the new OTES to the one parents of older children know.

And I'm surprised I guess at the low standards people who love OTES seem to have in general.  We got a "back to school" postcard in the mail yesterday from the principal, directing us to the website to read her welcome letter.  When you go to the website the welcome letter hasn't been updated - it's the 2018-19 one.  It's not a school that feels on top of their stuff.  The online portal where the teachers can update you or whatever stayed completely blank the entire year.  They did standardized testing that they didn't tell us about ahead of time throughout the year, and the results sometimes showed up in the portal, sometimes not.

I'd actually love to hear from parents of older OTES students to see if this is a different experience from what they got.  I still want to like OTES, and the Spanish program is invaluable, but our experience can't possibly be what people are talking about when they say they love the school.

Anyway, just some honest feedback.  We have met some really nice families, love that it is a walking school and plan to be engaged members of the community.  However, there are a number of things we are really hoping improve in our son's second year.

Good luck, OP!  Kindergarten is exciting!
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This is exactly our experience even in older grades.  You summarized it nicely.  It isn't going to change.  At least this year we got the school supply list online earlier.  I think a lot of parents like the school because they don't make a lot of demands on the parents.  In older grades, they spend a lot of time playing "educational" games so the teachers can do their "centers" on the chrome books.

Please do buy extra schools supplies to donate to the classroom teachers (and specials) directly.  They are not allowed to ask for what they need even if you ask them and if parents don't send it in, the teachers have to buy it.  The PTA does not allot funds to the teachers for supplies (or maybe I missed it at the meetings and their website which isn't updated either).  They always appreciate extra pencils, erasers, markers, crayons, kleenex, wipes, soap, glue sticks (especially glue sticks).  Also, some of the teachers appreciate books and games for indoor recess (but that is teacher specific on what they need).
[/quote]

DP: our oldest is entering second, and our experience has had some overlap with PP's.  The website needs better updating, and communication from PTA is fair, at best.  The dynamics I've observed there haven't been great, although I'm optimistic that with more engaged parents getting involved, that could change.  I plan on getting more involved this year, and am not going to complain a lot when I didn't participate as much as I theoretically could have (we have two younger children and between them and working FT, didn't have the bandwidth).  But, I'll also take our PTA over some of the over-organized ones I've heard about at other schools.  We really liked the PTA sponsored activities we attended, and our oldest had a great time at the various after school activities in which he participated.

We had plenty of communication from our child's K and 1st grade teachers.  The latter proactively emailed us throughout the year with spontaneous updates about him, e.g., if he did something particularly noteworthy that day.  This teacher responded to all emails within the same day (and dear lord, I hope she is one of the ones who is still there this year).  Our K teacher wasn't as proactive, but she responded quickly to emailed questions, as well, and in general was enthusiastic and responsive.  All that being said, we also didn't feel like we needed a ton of information about our child on a daily basis.  We generally knew what was going on based on information from Back to School night, parent-teacher conferences, and what he brought home, and that sufficed.  A teacher not responding to emailed questions would bother me, but that hasn't been our experience at all.

We haven't tried to volunteer yet, so can't speak to that.  I called the front office today to ask about medication forms for my rising K, who has food allergies, and got all my questions answered quickly.

So, yeah, we like OTES a lot.  It's a smaller school, both in terms of total students and class sizes, the principal is a strong administrator*, there's a lot of continuity in the teachers, we see our child learning and being engaged, he has made friends, etc.  It's a public school.  We have reasonable expectations and, so far, OTES has met them easily.

*Some parents really don't like her, I suspect because she doesn't do exactly what they want.  I prefer that she focus on running the school well, and believe she does that. [/quote]

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