My DC currently in CES had a visit from middle school counselors at his elementary school. The counselors discouraged everyone from taking FL in 6th as the language gets harder in higher grades. The logic was if you start in 6th, you will be at spanish 4a/b in 9th grade. So for that reason my DC is freaked out, before the counselor visit he was set on taking Spanish in 6th.
From reading this thread it seems DL is not a very useful class either. For whatever reasons, there arent many elective options for 6th graders considering the counselors are discouraging them from starting FL in 6th. So if your DC already is taking band, and doesn’t want to take FL there is either elective’s rotation or DL. Since DL is useless acc to dcum, is electives rotation better?

+100% agree to previous posts.

My now HS who took DL in 6th grade did so because he understood that while you are physically in HS you need to take several years of a language. Do what is right for your child, I feel for the children who want to take music in any form because instead of MCPS offering some type of musical digital class that fulfills the Technology requirement for graduation; these children are sacrificing their passion to fulfill this check mark on a list while children like mine are not effected. Just sad.

My kid is in 6th this year at Frost. He has no learning issues and take DL. He is in Algebra 1 and HIGH just like many other high achieving 6th graders. He had no interest in taking French, Chinese or Spanish. He is waiting till HS to see if there are going to be other offerings. He is a native Spanish speaker, but wants to learn Japanese, currently not offered. DL is an easy class. HIGH is an easy class. Science and Adv English are also easy. None of it is hard. His friends who are taking French and Spanish also say that it has not been hard. If anyone is expecting that 6th grade courses are challenging are in for a rude awakening. These classes are for 11 year olds, it’s not rocket science. They barely had any homework all year. They have to do a lot of group projects but again everything is on a very basic level.

Omgoodness why do folks keep perpetuating this ridiculousness. Plenty of kids take DL. Most do not have a learning issue and are perfectly capable of handling a FL, just not every kid wants to take one 6th grade. Some start FL in 7th, some start in 8th, some wait until HS. Depends on the student and HS interest. Most HS special programs do not have a FL basic requirement, and the ones that do only require at being enrolled in at least Level 1. The effectiveness of the DL class is based on school and teacher(like every other class). Most students I know who’ve taken it thought it an easy class albeit a waste of time.

IMO they’d be better to create a true DL curriculum for which to teach the class, or do away with it in favor or a more focused writing and research class.