Reply to Push for another bilingual middle school

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It started as a strand program many years ago.  It is now in the process of becoming a full-school program.  A quality dual language Spanish middle school program is needed on the eastern side of the city.  But I think you maybe have a bunch of younger parents who are currently very happy with early elementary at Chisholm also trying to solve a perceived middle school problem ahead of their own children’s middle school years, which raises some questions about the current quality if the nearby middle schools and whether a PreK3-8 campus like CHML is really the answer.[/quote]

How and why did the strand program start at Chisholm? Like the full-school programs, almost all of the strand programs are in areas with a large Spanish-speaking population.[/quote]

Richer, whiter, families in the area pushed for it. It allowed them to say they fought for equity (since now they got a bilingual program like in NW) and chose their in-bounds school without actually having to put their kids in classes with kids who live in public housing.[/quote]

100%, and now they are pushing for their own middle school at a time when the rest of the Hill is trying to build IB buy in and momentum at the existing middle schools. It's so counterproductive.

To the people pushing for this program: send your kid to private. I mean it. It's obviously what you want anyway. Well foot the bill yourself. Don't take money way from Jefferson or Eliot-Hine. You want a special, bespoke education just for your kids and no one else? That already exists, it's called private school, there are many in this area.[/quote]

Jefferson and Eliot Hine are failing their students and are under enrolled. [/quote]

Yes and creating a new, separate MS on Capitol Hill when 2 of the 3 MSs there are already under enrolled is therefore a real head scratcher. How will that help? If you are going to create a program to serve immersion kids at Chisolm, why wouldn't you do it at Jefferson where it might actually improve IB buy in at an existing school? And likely also increase IB buy in from families at other feeders, as I think a really strong Spanish program with more advanced options would be appealing to parents at Brent, Amidon-Bowen, and Van Ness too. God forbid we create a MS program that actually serves all the kids in the feeder rather than just the kids at Chisolm.[/quote]

Again, no one is trying to get a middle school “just for Chisholm kids.” People keep saying they’ve read the website about the push for the middle school but they clearly have not. It explicitly says they hope students citywide could be fit from the K-8 bilingual campus. Is that actually doable? I have no idea. But it is not trying to get a special middle school at the expense of other Hill middle schools. [/quote]

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