Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thomson demographics
Black: 15%
Hispanic/Latino: 62%
White: 2%
Asian: 19%
Pacific/Hawaiian: 0%
Native/Alaskan: 0%
Multiple races: 1%

We attended Thomson through 4th grade and left about 3 years ago. I can tell you that when my child started in 2006 that the demographic population of the school was very different. If I remember at the time it was more like 40 AA, 35% Hispanic 20% Asian and 5 % white. This breakdown was pretty much the case through all the grades. When we departed I think the PK classes were nearly 85% Hispanic. The challenge Thomson has is that the second language issues are huge. Many of the parents can speak Spanish but cannot read school info sent back in Spanish. Likewise many of the Chinese students parents came from Taiwan and tended not to speak Mandrin, but could read it. It took us forever to figure out all they ways we were miscommunicating and the principal turnover complicated this issue. What Thomson has are parents who really want their kids to succeed and will help their children, what it does not have are adquate supports to help these parents help their children. This is not so much the Principal per se but a real blind spot that DCPS has towards how many second language children are now in the system.

I personally think that there is a lot of potential at the school, but there will be a focus on pulling kids up in terms of language, this will make it difficult to have traditional PTA type programs and may mean very advanced kids get less focus.

I've lived in Taiwan. Even native Taiwanese can understand Mandarin even if they don't speak it. And there is only one written Chinese language.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thomson demographics
Black: 15%
Hispanic/Latino: 62%
White: 2%
Asian: 19%
Pacific/Hawaiian: 0%
Native/Alaskan: 0%
Multiple races: 1%

We attended Thomson through 4th grade and left about 3 years ago. I can tell you that when my child started in 2006 that the demographic population of the school was very different. If I remember at the time it was more like 40 AA, 35% Hispanic 20% Asian and 5 % white. This breakdown was pretty much the case through all the grades. When we departed I think the PK classes were nearly 85% Hispanic. The challenge Thomson has is that the second language issues are huge. Many of the parents can speak Spanish but cannot read school info sent back in Spanish. Likewise many of the Chinese students parents came from Taiwan and tended not to speak Mandrin, but could read it. It took us forever to figure out all they ways we were miscommunicating and the principal turnover complicated this issue. What Thomson has are parents who really want their kids to succeed and will help their children, what it does not have are adquate supports to help these parents help their children. This is not so much the Principal per se but a real blind spot that DCPS has towards how many second language children are now in the system.

I personally think that there is a lot of potential at the school, but there will be a focus on pulling kids up in terms of language, this will make it difficult to have traditional PTA type programs and may mean very advanced kids get less focus.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thomson demographics
Black: 15%
Hispanic/Latino: 62%
White: 2%
Asian: 19%
Pacific/Hawaiian: 0%
Native/Alaskan: 0%
Multiple races: 1%

We attended Thomson through 4th grade and left about 3 years ago. I can tell you that when my child started in 2006 that the demographic population of the school was very different. If I remember at the time it was more like 40 AA, 35% Hispanic 20% Asian and 5 % white. This breakdown was pretty much the case through all the grades. When we departed I think the PK classes were nearly 85% Hispanic. The challenge Thomson has is that the second language issues are huge. Many of the parents can speak Spanish but cannot read school info sent back in Spanish. Likewise many of the Chinese students parents came from Taiwan and tended not to speak Mandrin, but could read it. It took us forever to figure out all they ways we were miscommunicating and the principal turnover complicated this issue. What Thomson has are parents who really want their kids to succeed and will help their children, what it does not have are adquate supports to help these parents help their children. This is not so much the Principal per se but a real blind spot that DCPS has towards how many second language children are now in the system.

I personally think that there is a lot of potential at the school, but there will be a focus on pulling kids up in terms of language, this will make it difficult to have traditional PTA type programs and may mean very advanced kids get less focus.

Anonymous wrote:Thomson demographics
Black: 15%
Hispanic/Latino: 62%
White: 2%
Asian: 19%
Pacific/Hawaiian: 0%
Native/Alaskan: 0%
Multiple races: 1%

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Asian-American kids don't appear to stay in the later grades (older than 3rd grade)

That's right, their immigrant parents usually move to MoCo by 2nd grade. Chinese will sacrifice to live in areas where schools have high test scores.

Exactly, Chinese (Asians in general actually) are all about standardized test scores. The Chinese invented it.

Anonymous wrote:My DC attended PK3 two years ago. Teachers were great. My DC really enjoyed school.

Anonymous wrote:The Asian-American kids don't appear to stay in the later grades (older than 3rd grade)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Asian-American kids don't appear to stay in the later grades (older than 3rd grade)

That's right, their immigrant parents usually move to MoCo by 2nd grade. Chinese will sacrifice to live in areas where schools have high test scores.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I doubt that any Thomson parents are regulars on this forum, which makes the gains in academic achievement at Thomson all the more impressive.

Your doubt makes it impressive?

Anonymous wrote:The Asian-American kids don't appear to stay in the later grades (older than 3rd grade)