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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I bet they delay it for another year or two. People in pretty much every middle school were furious about having to move, and that eventually is inevitable. But it's easier to just kick the can for a few years. [/quote]
I haven't heard that much furor.  The loudest are a few Taylor parents who don't think their kids should have to move to WMS, but that will likely be ignored as ridiculous.   And two Ashlawn PUs that don't want to be carved off the rest of the elementary school, but I think that can pretty easily be fixed. No one else has posted a significant number of comments.  [/quote]

I agree with this.  It's really not that big of a deal.  The Hamm people are just nuts.[/quote]

What are they doing that is nuts?[/quote]

Suggesting that the County's middle school immersion program should move to the opposite corner of the Couty from its current location and bulk of current students.  Oh also that part of the County has extremely limited native spanish speakers nearby pretty much ensuring the program will ultimately fail.  Behaving as if the option schools should just take whatever crumbs are left and like it and they have no right to complain or advocate as neighborhood schools are the priority.  I don't even have kids in an option school and most of the arguments are both ignorant and entitled.[/quote]

I’m pretty sure it’s Kenmore parents advocating for immersion to be moved somewhere besides their school. They are (understandably) opposed to losing their neighborhood seats.[/quote]
Nah, read the beginning of this thread.  It is mostly Taylor parents.  Kenmore parents wouldn't be fixated on WMS, as the Immersion program could stay at Gunston or move to another MS and solve their concerns.  It's only the Taylor parents who specifically want immersion at WMS because otherwise they are likely to be moved.

If you read the APS Thought Exchange, you'd see that the immersion community is supportive of the program being sited anywhere centrally located in Arlington or staying at Gunston.  They are being pretty darn reasonable.  It's APS that said that TJ isn't an option because of IB and Gunston isn't an option because of overcrowding.  Swanson isn't an option because it's already over crowded so too many kids would need to move.  If IB isn't an issue for moving the program to TJ, then Kenmore should figure out why APS is wrong.[/quote]

From Thought Exchange, it looks like the big issue for Kenmore parents is that they are moving most Ashlawn students to Swanson and leaving just a few at Kenmore. But that should be pretty easily fixable. [/quote]

Kenmore parent here. Our concerns are splitting up more of the neighborhoods that feed to Kenmore, the traffic, and making the school more economically and ethnically segregated. In both the boundary shift map and moving immersion to Kenmore those things happen. We lose walkers, neighborhoods are split, and we lose more affluent neighborhoods. None of those are good things for the school.

I guess I’m not convinced why IB and Immersion can’t coexist, or why moving the program where we have space in a corridor that isn’t experiencing growth via up-zoning, even if it’s not ideal for some current families, isn’t better than what they have proposed. I don’t understand why moving the MS to a school with a lot of Hispanic kids who are not and cannot be in Immersion will benefit the kids at the school, or why moving it to WMS would harm it. If you were also talking about making Campbell or Carlin Springs the Immersion ES, then maybe this would make sense to me, because then you’d accidentally capture more EL students in ES and perhaps keep them for MS if the K-8 programs were in the buildings they believed to be their neighborhood schools. But you aren’t helping more native speakers who are EL by moving just the MS program, when the EL kids at Kenmore can’t enroll. So it seems to me that moving it to WMS would have no impact on EL kids. Am I wrong? [/quote]

Kids DO have an option to join immersion in MS (they can test into the program). But I agree it is not common. I would like it to be more common, but I do think it's a common problem for a lot of native Spanish speakers (who have gone to English only schools) to not be able to read/write in spanish at the grade level they would need to test into the program. So I understand this concern.

All that being said, APS moved the ELL program under the immersion branch meaning that immersion has the necessary resources to teach ELL. This doesn't mean that kids need to be in the immersion program. AT Gunston the immersion staff also teaches ELL. So bringing immersion to Gunston would theoretically bring a very strong ELL staff to help kids.

Third, the idea is not that it will help kids immediately the day it moves into Kenmore, but that by moving to Kenmore more Spanish speakers can join the ES and then continue on to MS at Kenmore (but it would take years for the impact of this clearly).

There was initially talk about moving the Claremont Immersion program to Carlin Springs, but I am not sure what is going on with that now.

[/quote]
There's a lot more to be said for the synergy that can be created between a school with many Spanish speaking families and hosting the immersion program, even if not all the native Spanish speaking kids are in the program.  For instance, [b]all PTA and Principal communications should be bilingual.  Back to school night and award ceremonies can more easily support families that don't speak English. [/b]Spanish speaking english learners are more likely to be able to communicate with other students in extra curriculars or socially, as there will be less of a language barrier.  English speakers learning Spanish are more likely to be in immersive environments.  Student groups and activities can support language and cultural events. The library can have a larger Spanish language collection.  It really allows APS to build a strong ELL program AND immersion program by having staff and faculty wear two hats.

My understanding is that immersion students are only separate for a few classes a day and spend the rest of the time mixed with the rest of the MS.  There's a lot of overlap.[/quote]

This already happens at Kenmore, as well as our neighborhood ES and all the Title 1 schools in SA that I’ve encountered. I guess one concern is that by “consolidating” Hispanic kids we are not really better supporting them. They should be able to walk into any ES or MS or HS in APS and be met with adequate services. If we push them all into certain ones, how are we not steering them away from others and increasing segregation of all types? I am really bothered by this trend. It’s not much different than during segregation, similar arguments were made that certain children would be more comfortable and better served by being kept separate. If you move it to WMS, WMS would then have bilingual staff and offer some of those things you mention, so you’re opening another door for Hispanic kids rather than penning them all into once place and one experience. Something just doesn’t sit right with me about this plan. [/quote]
[b]No, it doesn't work that way.  If Immersion was at WMS, staff wouldn't be able to wear two hats and work with both EL and immersion students because there aren't other EL students.

The PTA wouldn't magically start holding meetings in Spanish to support immersion parents that were thrust upon them.  It would likely always be two separate groups, not an integrated community.[/b]

Hispanic families aren't going to move to WMS zone because of strong support for Spanish speakers.  That's not going to happen and doesn't make sense.

The immersion program isn't Title 1, so it's not importing low income students to move the program to Kenmore.

Immersion doesn't need to be at a school with the most ELs, but it also shouldn't be at a school with almost no Spanish speaking ELs.  [/quote]

You do not seem to understand how the immersion program at Gunston works. If you move the program, you implement it the same way at the new location as you do in the current one. Be careful what you ask for, WMS. If you don't really want a bunch of Spanish-speaking kids in your school or a much stronger focus on Hispanic culture, then don't be advocating for this. [/quote]

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