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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am always shocked, on the rare occasion I dive into the DCUM universe, by the amazing level of just basic rudeness on display in so many of the threads here. And for some reason YY is often a prime target.

With fear that I'll draw the ire of a whole host of people on here, I'll trepidatiously add a few things to the discussion:

1) For me, and a decent percentage of other YY families, the IB PYP program was as desirable a draw as the Chinese. This seems to be largely missing from this discussion.

2) Sure, some folks use tutors. And sure, it certainly helps - any individualized instruction improves any endeavor - sports, math, reading, art, music. But there are plenty of folks who don't and get by. Are my children fluent? Nope. Are they conversant? Yep! Have they been gaining a basis in the language that they can build upon if they want? Absolutely! Are the consistently learning? For sure!

3) Beyond the codified academics, YY is warm and welcoming for students, has fairly small class sizes, a lovely campus, a committed faculty, an involved parent community. Sure, it isn't perfect. (School drop off, gah!)  There is no such thing as a perfect school; and there is no such thing as the right school for everybody. (For instance: I would consider neither BASIS nor KIPP to be a good school for any of my children. But they are the exact right school for some children.) If the model for the 'perfect school' existed...me oh my what would folks on DCUM argue about then??

4) YY threads appear to be consistently hijacked by someone/some people who have issues with the lack of two-way immersion - a critique framed as 'YY engages in insufficient outreach to the ABC community'. This line of argument is...disingenuous. Yes, two-way immersion is considered the gold standard for immersion schools - but a two-way immersion school can only exist within very specific parameters. 
A) You must be able to control your enrollment to allow for near equal enrollment of native speakers of the two target languages. Charter schools in DC are not allowed to have an entrance test. Period. They are only allowed to restrict enrollment by grade level (no entry after 1st grade, for instance). While getting established, YY engaged with the powers that be (DCPCSB, local lawmakers, etc) about this issue, and was solidly rebuffed. YY is prevented, by law, from trying to create a two-way immersion program. So the vast majority of the students come to YY with little to no background in Chinese. YY therefore, correctly and rightly so, built its educational system to cater to these students. 
B) Beyond the legal framework, to be successful a two-way immersion school has to have a sufficient community of speakers in the target languages to draw from. So...DC clearly has a sufficient base of English speakers to draw from. But what about Chinese? Well, according to the US Census Bureau, approximately 3% of the population of DC is Asian. That sounds pretty low! But, in hard numbers, that's around 20,000-25,000 people. Oh, hey, that number sounds good, right? But 'Asian' doesn't mean Chinese speaking. It could mean Mandarin Chinese...or Cantonese (not taught at YY), some other dialect, or Japanese, or Korean, or Indonesian or Thai or Hindi or Nepalese or Malay or....well, I think you get the point. Want to dig even deeper? According to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, just over 12,200 residents of DC speak an 'Asian or Pacific Islander Language' at home. And broken down even more...LESS THAN ONE THOUSAND residents of DC between the ages of 5 and 17 speak an 'Asian or Pacific Islander Language' at home. [Data: https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=CF] So...how many DC residents are Mandarin Chinese speaking children of elementary school age? Maybe...150? 300? (out of around 75,000 children age 5-17 in DC) Think about those numbers every time you see the complaints about YY not doing enough outreach to the Chinese-speaking community.

Finally, folks seem to do a lot of hand wringing about schools. Again, there is no perfect school. Yes, it is all somewhat stressful. But...think of the amazing amount of choice we do have. Where I grew up small town/rural south) you enrolled in school. The school. The only option. We are so lucky to have the options we have. [/quote]

Sure, they CATER to these students. But immersion isn't what they're offering at YY. It's a misnomer that should be calledout.Have you checked out the Chinese at DCI? Not impressive. Why not? Because immersion programs need a bunch of families who know the language + culture to work out in the medium and long-term. If you can't get these families, don't bother. Make a new plan.

Signed,
Immigrant Asian parent with 2 kids in Spanish immersion who rejected a spot at YY last year, moved IB for Oyster
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