Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 12:35     Subject: German Immersion
Anonymous wrote:Thank you, that is a good reply. I will check into it tonight.

I asked her doesn’t she find German confusing with all those long, weird words and grammar, but she doesn’t have any trouble. I love it.

It has been a huge commitment, but to have a bilingual kid when you don’t speak another language, it made me feel really good


German is actually an easy language for American kids to learn.

My kid who struggles in English and has some language related learning disabilities has no problems learning German in FCPS, non immersion.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 12:33     Subject: German Immersion
Anonymous wrote:I am talking back-and-forth to the transfer office and the general message is too bad, too sad. They should fix something, they shouldn’t break something in the middle.

I will write the school board and the superintendent tomorrow

All they tell me is go to my base school and check the languages there, and that would be no problem if they would just offer German.

I don’t know if my daughter is up for IB, but we don’t speak German and I’ve been told she doesn’t even have an accent in German

She would’ve graduated with a German high school diploma as well, and we were thinking of sending her to Germany for college. I told her she could get a business degree and be bilingual in English in German and go on. We were really quite invested in it.





FCPS doesn't give students who take German in high school a German high school diploma.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 12:27     Subject: German Immersion
Thank you, that is a good reply. I will check into it tonight.

I asked her doesn’t she find German confusing with all those long, weird words and grammar, but she doesn’t have any trouble. I love it.

It has been a huge commitment, but to have a bilingual kid when you don’t speak another language, it made me feel really good
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 12:16     Subject: German Immersion
Anonymous wrote:I am talking back-and-forth to the transfer office and the general message is too bad, too sad. They should fix something, they shouldn’t break something in the middle.

I will write the school board and the superintendent tomorrow

All they tell me is go to my base school and check the languages there, and that would be no problem if they would just offer German.

I don’t know if my daughter is up for IB, but we don’t speak German and I’ve been told she doesn’t even have an accent in German

She would’ve graduated with a German high school diploma as well, and we were thinking of sending her to Germany for college. I told her she could get a business degree and be bilingual in English in German and go on. We were really quite invested in it.



She doesn't have to do the full diploma. The Humanities classes for IB look pretty great. She could even take those a SL and not HL if she wanted, essentially honors vs AP. And they have AP classes that should take for subjects like math and science if she is more STEM based.

If she wants to go to Germany for College, then the IB program is actually a great fit for her because that is the program, or similar to the program, that German HS kids take. The IB diploma would actually help her in her application process.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 12:13     Subject: German Immersion
Anonymous wrote:I am talking back-and-forth to the transfer office and the general message is too bad, too sad. They should fix something, they shouldn’t break something in the middle.

I will write the school board and the superintendent tomorrow

All they tell me is go to my base school and check the languages there, and that would be no problem if they would just offer German.

I don’t know if my daughter is up for IB, but we don’t speak German and I’ve been told she doesn’t even have an accent in German

She would’ve graduated with a German high school diploma as well, and we were thinking of sending her to Germany for college. I told her she could get a business degree and be bilingual in English in German and go on. We were really quite invested in it.





She doesn’t have to do the full IB program in order to attend an IB school. She can take a few classes.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 12:08     Subject: German Immersion
I am talking back-and-forth to the transfer office and the general message is too bad, too sad. They should fix something, they shouldn’t break something in the middle.

I will write the school board and the superintendent tomorrow

All they tell me is go to my base school and check the languages there, and that would be no problem if they would just offer German.

I don’t know if my daughter is up for IB, but we don’t speak German and I’ve been told she doesn’t even have an accent in German

She would’ve graduated with a German high school diploma as well, and we were thinking of sending her to Germany for college. I told her she could get a business degree and be bilingual in English in German and go on. We were really quite invested in it.



Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 11:11     Subject: German Immersion
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I just got this reply, and I wrote back that the language is not offered at our home school and asked what we should do. Next step I will start writing school board.

Good morning,

Thank you for calling the student transfer office.

Student transfers are not available for the purpose of taking a specific world language. For questions regarding course selection, please visit your school's website to view the course selection catalog. For more information, contact your child’s school counselor or the Director of Student Services.

For additional information regarding the student transfer application process, including timelines please visit the student transfer website. Questions? Email: StudentTransfer@FCPS.edu

Thank you,

Student Transfer/Home Instruction Team
Fairfax County Public Schools
8115 Gatehouse Road
Falls Church, VA 22042
Student Transfer Website
Home Instruction Website


Request an IB transfer into Robinson


This. I’m not an immersion parent, but FCPS should not offer it without a path through HS.


This is new and I doubt that they thought through the immersion piece because, well, it's FCPS.

There should be an immersion placement option, and maybe they will get that message more clearly as this happens more. It might be that they cannot go to the closest school with the language because the school is over crowded, like WSHS, and they have to look else where.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 10:56     Subject: German Immersion
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I just got this reply, and I wrote back that the language is not offered at our home school and asked what we should do. Next step I will start writing school board.

Good morning,

Thank you for calling the student transfer office.

Student transfers are not available for the purpose of taking a specific world language. For questions regarding course selection, please visit your school's website to view the course selection catalog. For more information, contact your child’s school counselor or the Director of Student Services.

For additional information regarding the student transfer application process, including timelines please visit the student transfer website. Questions? Email: StudentTransfer@FCPS.edu

Thank you,

Student Transfer/Home Instruction Team
Fairfax County Public Schools
8115 Gatehouse Road
Falls Church, VA 22042
Student Transfer Website
Home Instruction Website


Request an IB transfer into Robinson


This. I’m not an immersion parent, but FCPS should not offer it without a path through HS.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 10:14     Subject: German Immersion
Anonymous wrote:I just got this reply, and I wrote back that the language is not offered at our home school and asked what we should do. Next step I will start writing school board.

Good morning,

Thank you for calling the student transfer office.

Student transfers are not available for the purpose of taking a specific world language. For questions regarding course selection, please visit your school's website to view the course selection catalog. For more information, contact your child’s school counselor or the Director of Student Services.

For additional information regarding the student transfer application process, including timelines please visit the student transfer website. Questions? Email: StudentTransfer@FCPS.edu

Thank you,

Student Transfer/Home Instruction Team
Fairfax County Public Schools
8115 Gatehouse Road
Falls Church, VA 22042
Student Transfer Website
Home Instruction Website


Request an IB transfer into Robinson
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 10:09     Subject: German Immersion
I just got this reply, and I wrote back that the language is not offered at our home school and asked what we should do. Next step I will start writing school board.

Good morning,

Thank you for calling the student transfer office.

Student transfers are not available for the purpose of taking a specific world language. For questions regarding course selection, please visit your school's website to view the course selection catalog. For more information, contact your child’s school counselor or the Director of Student Services.

For additional information regarding the student transfer application process, including timelines please visit the student transfer website. Questions? Email: StudentTransfer@FCPS.edu

Thank you,

Student Transfer/Home Instruction Team
Fairfax County Public Schools
8115 Gatehouse Road
Falls Church, VA 22042
Student Transfer Website
Home Instruction Website
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 08:58     Subject: German Immersion
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:That’s the thing, I don’t think they’re allowing any transfers for language.


Not okay. As a fellow German Immersion parent, how can we help? Who is in charge of this placement program? Should we mention this at the OHES PTA meeting?


We went a different route: the German School, Washington (DSW), but for Saturday classes. The top groups lead to taking the German government exams:

DSD-1
DSD-2

If your HS student passes the DSD-2, they will be eligible for direct admission into a German uni after HS graduation in the U.S.


(digit to add)

But, it will cost you most Saturday mornings from 8-11:30, plus tuition.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 08:56     Subject: German Immersion
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:That’s the thing, I don’t think they’re allowing any transfers for language.


Not okay. As a fellow German Immersion parent, how can we help? Who is in charge of this placement program? Should we mention this at the OHES PTA meeting?


We went a different route: the German School, Washington (DSW), but for Saturday classes. The top groups lead to taking the German government exams:

DSD-1
DSD-2

If your HS student passes the DSD-2, they will be eligible for direct admission into a German uni after HS graduation in the U.S.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 08:32     Subject: German Immersion
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:That’s a work-around, but they shouldn’t have to do a work-around, plus that kind of work-around might not exist for all languages. FCPS needs to provide a path for those immersion kids to continue.


Or get rid of immersion for languages it can’t support at the MS and HS levels.


And there’s lots of other reasons to get rid of elementary immersion.


Immersion is a great program, we loved it for our child and his classmates seemed to really enjoy it as well. Is the program perfect? No but no program is perfect. It provided a challenge for my kid, who needed a challenge. The program has waitlists at pretty much every school, which makes me think that it could be expanded to be able to include more schools.

It sounds like parents who are choosing to place kids out of boundary for language immersion need to understand that their kid might not be able to pupil place for the language in HS. We were at a JI program and many of the HS in the area offer Japanese so kids who were in immersion have the language at their HS.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 08:10     Subject: German Immersion
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:That’s a work-around, but they shouldn’t have to do a work-around, plus that kind of work-around might not exist for all languages. FCPS needs to provide a path for those immersion kids to continue.


Or get rid of immersion for languages it can’t support at the MS and HS levels.


And there’s lots of other reasons to get rid of elementary immersion.
Anonymous
Post 02/12/2026 08:00     Subject: German Immersion
Anonymous wrote:That’s a work-around, but they shouldn’t have to do a work-around, plus that kind of work-around might not exist for all languages. FCPS needs to provide a path for those immersion kids to continue.


Or get rid of immersion for languages it can’t support at the MS and HS levels.