Reply to Yu Ying - Transferring to Yu Ying from another state

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hi everyone!  I'm very late to this discussion and haven't read all 17 pages.  But I **LOVE** Yu Ying, so I thought I'd share my opinions here, like it or not!

[b]1.  "Go start your own Mandarin immersion school if you don't like it."[/b]
Actually, sooner or later, this will happen!  Just like we have at least two DC charters that teach Spanish, there is more than enough demand for a second Chinese charter school.  Perhaps one that focused on traditional characters instead of simplified?  Or which offered elective Cantonese?   Don't underestimate what DC parents can create.

[b]2. "Yu Ying was just started by a bunch of parents with no experience in education"[/b]
And what an amazing job these parents have done!  A top-ranked charter school, new campus, international high school, IB accreditation.  Applause for the parents!  And think of what would have happened had the teacher's unions and "professional" educators been allowed to continue with business as usual before the charter schools came.

[b]3. "I believe the law allows for tracking"[/b]
Yes, in fact, Yu Ying already tracks its uppermost grade!  And it needs to!  Not all kids are going to be at the same level of Chinese; they vary tremendously.  Therefore the need to track.  Most all schools "track" students in English readers; the advanced kids don't read the same books as the remedial readers.

[b]4. "We need a way to test-in older kids who already speak some Mandarin"[/b]  Yes, we do, and YY will find a way to do it!   The main issue is that students are lost due to natural attrition in the older grades.  Let the new students in to replace them!  If they speak Mandarin already all the better!

That's it for now guys!  Sorry if I seem obnoxiously positive, but some people don't realize what a GREAT school we have and prefer to pick petty fights here!  Appreciate what we have![/quote]

1.  This would be wonderful. But, if it is started in DC, they will not be allowed to do test-in.  But they can flaunt the law until they get caught like LAMB, and then it will cease.

2.  You are incorrect. YY does not track. The school does differential teaching in the classrooms. In my child's third grade class, the children's reading level range from K-Q.  Some students are performing fractions with ease, while others are still laboring under 3 digit addition.  The teachers work with the varying levels in one class room.  If there was tracking, the advanced students would be in one class and the lower performing students in another.  Finally, the students on grade level would be among their peers.  There are five classes so enough students for tracking, but no tracking.

3.  Your number 4 is also incorrect. YY is busy developing a 6-12 grade school, a p3 class, and an enlargement of its current YY campus.  Any attrition gaps from grades 3-5 will be closed with the new incoming 6 graders.   At this point why should or would YY expend any of their hard-earned political and economic capital trying to get a test-in for a few privileged families.  [/quote]

PP thank you for setting this other parent straight.  They were indeed wrong on these points.

Bottom line is, for this year and the next at least, it's not going to change.  No test in, no kids admitted in 2-5 grades (and pretty sure YY is hoping to close new admissions at 1st grade instead of 2nd soon, which they CAN do).  DCI will take care of attrition, and at this point the class sizes already take attrition into account at the later grades.  So right now, attrition is not the problem at YY that some of you want to make it out to be.

At this point I think we can assume that there is either one or two bitter or "challenged" parents who don't care that this can't happen now or that there is no issue with kids who don't speak the language getting in in the middle grades, and just because they like making people repeat themselves for 18 pages or because they are too dense to grasp these points, they are just going to continue asking for something that YY cannot (and some would say should not) change.  Either way, if it gets posed again, we know that that is the case.[/quote]

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