Anonymous wrote:How does Spanish immersion work at FCPS? Their website is clear as mud. If we are in boundary for an elementary school with Spanish immersion, are we automatically in? Or is it lottery ONLY? Are there whole school and strand programs? Specifically, we're looking at moving to Reston. We're in a Spanish immersion school in another district and don't want to lose that if/when we move. Thank you for any insights?
In FCPS, the immersion lottery procedures vary from school to school. Some prioritize native speakers or in-boundary students, but I don’t believe there are any where the program is guaranteed to all in boundary students. Very often, you have a better shot as an in boundary student, because you are only competing for a spot against the limited number of in boundary students, while families out of boundary are competing with people from all over. It’s worth a call to to WL office to ask about the specific schools you are looking at. The policy for each school is information they share at the information sessions each winter. Maybe they can email you those slides. Best of luck.