Reply to Asking for Advice - Rejection from Oyster-Adams Preschool

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Asking for Advice - Rejection from Oyster-Adams Preschool"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I agree on the nanny thing.  The point of wanting a certain percentage of Spanish dominant kids is that those kids will bring continuing Spanish fluency to the school.  What happens when the kid ages out of the nanny and now no one at home speaks Spanish?  Or the kid is now in school for most of the day and spends little time with that nanny?   And frankly,  I think it's BS that wealthier parents would be able to essentially buy their way in by hiring a Spanish-speaking nanny.  I don't blame them for wanting to screen that out.  OP's case seems unusual, in that the kid really does have a real connection to Spanish language.  If I were OP, I'd contact the school and DCPS, explain the situation, and seek redress that way.  [/quote]

The point is neither you nor anyone else know the personal circumstances of a given family.  It could be the "nanny" is an aunt or grandmother who will continue to live with the family.  Could be the family continues to employee the nanny for another 18 years.  You are making value judgements that have little to do with whether that child is actually Spanish dominant at the time they take the test.  It is more than reasonable for parents to want clear and consistent standards that are applied across all dual language schools.  It is also reasonable to expect that these standards are not based on socio-economic status or cultural background or any criteria other than actual language ability ("dominance").  It is especially important to have them since the test is administered after parents school lottery results are already set in stone.[/quote]

There is a clear and consistent standard at Oyster, under the current principal:  Spanish dominance, for purposes of lottery admission, must not be derived from nanny (aunt/grandma/play cousin) or preschool care.  You don’t have to like it, but that’s the standard.

Btw, life is all about imposed value judgments, both official and implied.  [/quote]

But the question is whether the kid is dominant (or fluent depending on what policy you look at).  How someone gets that dominance/fluency is irrelevant.  In fact, if she were excluding kids because they had Anglo parent(s) that would be blatant national origin discrimination.  A principal does not have leeway to break the law in setting policy and parents don't have to accept that.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics