Reply to Thinking of moving IB for Oyster-Adams

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Being completely fluent in Mandarin by 8th when starting at Grade 6 is a a bit of a stretch. I wouldn't choose OA for the Mandarin program, but it has other things going for it. Small community, small school feel, bilingualism. There are drawbacks as well, common to many DCPS elementary schools, like mediocre standards, big classes, overworked teachers who do their best but have way too many students to keep track. I would also say that Spanish grammar is not a focus, so the program leaves kids with high fluency but with deficits in writing. It's fixable once the kids start taking grammar classes in high school, but I just wanted to point out that fluency and grammar are not on balance.

OA and WIS are almost incomparable. The community is different, the class sizes are different, and the instruction is different. Both offer a bilingual education, but go about it differently.

To the OP, in between the OA cheerleaders and the haters is the reality. Visit for yourself, do some due-diligence, and realize every school isn't perfect on every level but still can get the job done.

[quote]
OP, we love the school and the neighorhood. Our plan is for our kids to do both elementary and middle at Oyster-Adams (assuming the Adams campus continues making good progress), and probably WIS for high school since bilingual ed is a priority for us. [/quote]

WIS is great at the high school level but does not offer bilingual instruction. Advanced Spanish classes are available and fluency can be maintained and increased, but not through bilingual classrooms. It's bilingual through 8th grade.[/quote]

Since WIS costs about $35,000 more than Oyster, anyone who is especially concerned about their child's Spanish grammar at Oyster can afford twice weekly private tutoring (plus, Saturday Spanish school), and still save tens of thousands of dollars annually.  As a matter of fact, you can send your kid to a spanish immersion summer program abroad and still come out way ahead.  Plus, you can always try to send your child to WIS for high school (or boarding school abroad for a truly international experience).  In terms of value for money (your tax dollars), Oyster simply can't be beat.  Any gaps you find can be more than made up for with the money saved.[/quote]

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