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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This all feels like another sign the immersion program isn't going to make it.

We turned down our neighborhood school and another lottery school at the start of K because we thought immersion was the way to go for our family. I have been second guessing myself for awhile. [/quote]

I don't get why people think this. The county and the schools in the past few years has been making huge strides to improve the immersion program. They got a new spanish curriculum, they moved to an 80/20 model, they started outreach to hispanic neighborhoods, they created a task force which made a number of recommendations that the county then adopted. They created new Spanish assessments to better evaluate where kids are. Basically, they have done a million things to support the program lately.  They are now moving it out of an overcrowded school to a school with a higher hispanic population and new facilities. WHY is that a sign that the program is not going to make it?[/quote]

This makes me so mad.  The resource spent trying to “save” a tiny program that benefits a few students when APS is failing county-wide on languages.  They cut back so kids can’t even take languages until 7th grade, and everyone knows the later you start the less likely it will stick.  It’s maddening.  [/quote]

I mean I do wish they had kept the program but a once a week 30-minute program wasn't helping anyone learn a language.  But I wish that APS would support dual language learning from the elementary level at all schools.[/quote]

I agree, wouldn’t it be nice?   Along with no trailers.  And class sizes under 38 kids.  And persistent qualified individualized teaching for under performers.  And an IB program open to any child in the County.  Etc.  My wish list is quite long too.  I recognize the reality of limited resources and dual language for everyone—particularly where it has spectacularly failed—is a complete pipe dream.

I think it is criminal to spend so much $ and time on an option program that isn’t supported.  Move on.  [/quote]

1200 or so kids are in the immersion program in ES and there is a wait list. Then over 300 in MS. I don't know in HS. BUT not sure why you would sat it's not supported. The program is at capacity limits currently. [/quote]

Not sure what PP is talking about, clearly there’s a demand especially at the ES level. That said, considerations for convenience of 300 students should be weighed against what is convenient and best for the other multiple thousands of students. Kids in option programs and schools (one of my kids among them) are in an optional program, and have choices. Families and students must weigh those choices when considering applications and acceptances. But students and families in neighborhood schools do not have the same luxury. If you make life more difficult for families who haven’t made any sort of choice, is that right? If you make a neighborhood school more segregated, by design, is that right? If you split up more neighborhoods and ES feeders, is that right? These are questions for the broader community to answer, not some select group of a few dozen families at the option schools/programs in question to decide and then have APS announce over the summer and ram through this fall. I can’t believe I’m actually having to spell this out. It’s wrong on just about every level. The idea that any school within APS isn’t appropriate for Spanish Immersion is wrong on its face. The idea that any school couldn’t change to accommodate Spanish speaking students and families is just wrong, wrong, wrong and should not even be a factor. [/quote]
You realize, right, that the immersion community hasn't asked to move its MS?  This is being driven by APS and the needs for more capacity at Gunston as a neighborhood school.  If other MS kids are being moved, it's because of population growth in S Arlington and not because of the immersion program.

(If the trigger was just the move of Immersion to Kenmore, those displaced kids would just swap to Gunston and N Arlington wouldn't see any changes.  But it's not.  APS needs to move kids north to accommodate population grown in S Arlington.)

Thus far the only thing I've heard from the immersion community is that the program should be located near a Hispanic community in Arlington to ensure that there are enough native Spanish speakers to keep the program viable.  APS said Gunston is overly full, TJ already has IB, and Swanson is full. That leaves Kenmore.

The immersion task force didn't weigh in on where to draw boundary lines or how to move around students between other neighborhood middle schools.  That's not up to the immersion community at all.  Take that up with APS.  Ditto with the timing of the rollout and process.  That's all APS too.  The immersion community is along for the ride just. like. you.[/quote]

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