Reply to current and potential immersion parents - watch out sneaky tactic to kick you out of bcc

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Please, keeping the class together isn't going to sell anyone to the cause here. No one is opposed to this in principle but it doesn't apply to at least half the kids zoned for BCC already, so it's pretty irrelevant. Immersion ends before HS, so there is simply no valid reason to add OOB kids to an overcrowded school on the grounds that they and they alone deserve to stay in a single group thrust 12years of MCPS.[/quote]

It's not just about being in a single group.  I'm a non-immersion Westland/BCC parent, and my kids have many friends in this program.  At Westland, the immersion kids are mixed in with everyone else for extracurriculars, and for 5 out 7 periods each day. Clearly they build connections and friendships during those times as well.

I also think that the immersion program adds significant diversity to the Westland and BCC community.  I'm glad that the immersion kids in my children's cohorts are able to stay (my youngest is rising 9th) for HS, and hope that the next cohorts will be able to as well.[/quote]

Another non-immersion BCC cluster parent here that is supportive of retaining the immersion program.  Immersion kids add strength to the upper level Spanish classes, which is a benefit for the BCC cluster non-immersion students working at that level.

Also, many posters on this thread seem to have the mistaken impression that because the immersion program "ends" at middle school, the immersion students can just go back to their home school and get what they need there.  BCC is one of only 6 or 7 high schools in the county that offer Spanish 7.  Immersion students start high school at higher fluency levels and need these upper level Spanish classes to maintain their fluency through high school.

Also, it's important to remember that BCC is overcrowded for many reasons, not just due to the immersion kids.  BCC grants many other non-immersion COSA's and admits some paid students (interesting to note that no public data has been provided on these).   BCC overcrowding is also due to the continued insistence of the county to try to stick to traditional building templates and only build to barely meet the projected capacity at any given moment.  So, as soon as more building is done, BCC is overcrowded again.  The link between capacity at BCC and projected long-term development in the area is broken.  A good example of this is the projected development at Chevy Chase Lake, where political/development figures have overridden the suggestions of the planning board staff for lower levels of development.  None of the planning for Chevy Chase Lake has taken into account how the new units will affect the BCC cluster schools -- I'm willing to bet that within a few years of building at CCL, North Chevy Chase Elementary, Rosemary Hills and BCC will all be seriously overcrowded (again) because of the lack of foresight/capacity building.  The only level that might take longer to get overcrowded will be the new middle school, because it will initially be built for a capacity greater than demand.

I personally would like to see MCPS get it's head out of it's A#$ when planning for future capacity, rather than having MCPS, the BOE, and (shamefully) the BCC PTA clusters scapegoating a small minority of kids in one program for the overcrowding problem.  Getting rid of immersion amounts to diminishing the "overcrowding" at BCC by one class per year (25 students), maximum.   That is not really a huge difference given that the entering classes at BCC have to be around 400 by this point.  [/quote]

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