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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Didn’t immersion serve a dedicated Hispanic ESL population when it was a neighborhood school, Key ES at its original Courthouse location? It moved and became an option program because upper middle class families wanted more room for their kids in the program.

I doubt all immersion families truly value the original purpose of immersion, to help ESL students. It’s become a prized option program. [/quote]
Uh no, the Key community didn't want to move.  APS wanted to put a neighborhood elementary school at the Key location and forced the move.  Key still follows the 50/50 model that it did before the move.  That hasn't changed at all.[/quote]

And did it die like you cried when they moved Key to the former ATS site? No. MS can also move without destroying the program. It’s not serving the largest populations of ESL kids now at any level from K-12, who are in the South Arlington neighborhood schools, schools which you want to further segregate and impoverish for your own selfish convenience. [/quote]

No, but the move forced us to go from 6 K classes to 4 due to reduced building size. So APS shrunk the immersion program with the move. That is a big part of why we fought the move. [/quote]

But they objections were that the Hispanic families (in particular ESL) wouldn’t follow the program and would just stay at the neighborhood school. If that hasn’t actually happened, then you can’t really cry foul about moving the location of the MS program. Yes, it’s less convenient for the kids who come up from Claremont and make up the current majority of the MS program, but it might mean attracting more Key students who currently don’t want the long commute to Gunston to stay in immersion. It may change who opts to stay in the program long term, but if it’s still attracting kids from both English and Spanish speaking families, I don’t think it matters whether they come from the Claremont or Key community. And if the program itself isn’t harmed by a move, and I argue that it would not be harmed just like Key was not harmed, it is the simplest and least disruptive way to address the imbalance of population at the MS level. [/quote]

For those who are advocating moving the middle school immersion program, I want to make sure you known there’s also a high school immersion program. That program is located at Wakefield. Are you all also proposing to move that program, or are you saying immersion kids should just go Key or Claremont/Williamsburg/Wakefield? It isn’t simple and it is disruptive to move the middle school program 20 minutes away, especially without a coherent plan for the high school program.

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Wakefield is also very overcrowded, so perhaps that should be on the table during boundary discussions! It’s almost an entirely self-contained program. Kids in Immersion only take PE in 9/10 and their one elective and have lunch with non-immersion students. I’m not sure it would matter if they are at Wakefield or Yorktown since they’re an entity unto themselves and pretty much have their own friend groups, the kids they were friends with in the ES and MS Immersion programs. There just isn’t a ton of mixing about. Do you have a kid this age yet? Just wait and see. [/quote]

How many immersion students continue with the program through high school? Is it the majority? Does it entail a transfer, or is it guaranteed admission to Wakefield? [/quote]

It was only 25 students to Senior level.  None of this is even worth the discussion.

The immersion program could be closed tomorrow.  The Hispanic families don’t care, they have to be lured in, and simply pick the closest school in most cases.  The other families are only avoiding some other school until it is not necessary anymore, even if they rationalize otherwise.  This explains the drop to 25 seniors.
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