Reply to Oakland Terrace

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Oakland Terrace"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]First time poster.  My son is a rising 1st grader at OTES so he was in the pilot year of Spanish immersion.  Like most of the PPs we felt and still feel so lucky to have gotten this giant perk.  First, you don't need to do anything to prepare your child.  My son came out of K with probably passable preschool level Spanish.  They learn a lot through songs, which is very fun to hear when they come home.  They learn the basics - letters, sounds, numbers, etc.  The Spanish teacher that my son had was very impressive.  It must be very hard to speak SOLELY in another language to first time kindergarteners!  Of course, some of the kids go in with Spanish as their native language, which is why this is a good community for a two-way immersion.

We WANTED to love this program and really really are hoping for the best in first grade.  We aren't the type to make waves or judge too quickly so we gave it the entire Kindergarten year.  And after talking to a lot of parents that I've gotten to know, this seems this has been the prevailing sentiment - people haven't known what to expect and wanted to give a lot of leeway for the first year of the program, but everyone has had the same observations....

There was zero communication from teachers.  Zero.  Including e-mails that often went unanswered until I followed up twice.  There was a complete stone wall about volunteering.  I signed up to volunteer and then followed up 3 times and was told no.  There was never any correspondence home and literally never an update on what the kids were doing in class.  This is my first child in elementary school so I  didn't know if I was expecting too much, but after talking to teachers in other schools I know that this is unusual.  I don't need a weekly or even monthly newsletter.  But we never ever heard from the teachers.  It's strange to send your 5 year old to Kindergarten all day and NEVER hear what they are up to.  And frustrating when you have a small concern or even question and don't get a response.  I have a friend who e-mailed the teacher about her child's epi-pen and never heard back.

I didn't want to rock the boat and I'm not up the teachers asses or anything.  But it was a very very disengaged year.  My son came home happy.  He made friends, liked his teachers, and learned Spanish.  But I'm surprised because I heard it was such an engaged community and we as parents were not involved at all, even when we tried.

I have chalked Kindergarten up to a wash.  It doesn't matter anyway, my son is academically fine, and I do understand that it must be quite the endeavor to start a new program.

That said, at least for his grade, its going to be a huge upheaval every single year.  There are 3 new teachers teaching 1st grade this year because of course they need Spanish certified teachers.  Each year he moves up, multiple teachers will have to move out.  In this sense, there is no comparing the new OTES to the one parents of older children know.

And I'm surprised I guess at the low standards people who love OTES seem to have in general.  We got a "back to school" postcard in the mail yesterday from the principal, directing us to the website to read her welcome letter.  When you go to the website the welcome letter hasn't been updated - it's the 2018-19 one.  It's not a school that feels on top of their stuff.  The online portal where the teachers can update you or whatever stayed completely blank the entire year.  They did standardized testing that they didn't tell us about ahead of time throughout the year, and the results sometimes showed up in the portal, sometimes not.

I'd actually love to hear from parents of older OTES students to see if this is a different experience from what they got.  I still want to like OTES, and the Spanish program is invaluable, but our experience can't possibly be what people are talking about when they say they love the school.

Anyway, just some honest feedback.  We have met some really nice families, love that it is a walking school and plan to be engaged members of the community.  However, there are a number of things we are really hoping improve in our son's second year.

Good luck, OP!  Kindergarten is exciting!
[/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