Reply to What DCPS ESs have foreign language as part of their core curriculum?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Reframing (not OP) - which DCPS ES have a foreign language as a special, and for what grades? I learned to ask this at open houses last year, but only after I’d already been to a bunch. I stupidly assumed all ES would have at least some foreign language. They don’t! It seems that Title 1 schools sometimes opt to use their extra funding for foreign language, but some don’t. At wealthy schools it’s PTA funded, but some wealthy schools (Stoddert) don’t have any foreign language. Mann has Spanish that is PTA funded but only through 2nd (?) grade. SWS has French- is that in every grade? [/quote]

Maury used to have a Spanish special but got rid of it a couple years ago. (Didn’t replace it with anything—always just cuts, cuts, cuts.) It didn’t do a lot for my kid, who inherited a really bad mind for languages from me, but it is a little galling that some schools are able to have more offerings than others. Specials feel to me like something that should be standard across the school system. [/quote]

I think parents often misunderstand the cost of specials to a school. It is burdensome. It's not just the cost of the teacher, but also the cost of finding good teachers with the necessary skill set (much harder than finding grade level teachers in some cases and Spanish teachers in particular are in high demand, and in DCPS there are extra certifications that many otherwise qualified teachers don't have). Allocating classroom space, which can also be important for hiring and retention (specials teachers can be push in instructors but most don't like having to do this plus it can take away from instructional time and limit what they can do). Then you also need materials, or teachers are stuck creating their own. With Spanish this is extra important and to offer proper Spanish instruction you should really have quite a bit of media in Spanish, plus it should be targeted at different ages.

The. You have the time costs. Already schedules in elementary can be crunched, with schools needing to make resources available to 6 grades plus PK. Specials require transition time as do lunch and recess, and you have to find a way to create sensible schedules for every grade and class that ensures kids are eating lunch at a reasonable time, getting enough classroom time in fundamental subjects, and ideally don't have weird issues like having to walk back and forth to opposite ends if the school twice in 90 minutes (a huge waste of everyone's time). The more specials you gave, the harder all this is.

I know schools who deal with this by putting specials on a block schedule instead of a weekly schedule (so kids rotate through specials throughout the year, where they go to the same special daily for several weeks). That can simplify schedules but causes other issues -- is taking Spanish daily for three weeks and a few times a year helpful? What about the parts of the year where kids don't have PE for months at a time when they are in other blocks?

But parents demand specials. It rarely occurs to then that there may be real benefits to their kids to simply doing LESS and doing it well. Your kid may truly be better off with fewer specials.[/quote]

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