Anonymous wrote:Greetings all,

I randomly put in a search Tolstoy academy, and saw this. I am the only who has posted on Ward 4 listservs and there are others who have spread the message around Columbia Heights and other lists. I am a volunteer and have nothing to gain from this except actual Russian school for my daughter. To answer a few questions/observations:
1) Why German? All Germans speak perfect English because very few people study German. Guess what, if an American wants to be an astronaut, what language is required?.
2) There are many Russians in DC, in addition to Rockville and VA, and more staying and coming. The idea is not only to target Russians (its a charter NOT a private school) but the community as a whole. I personally moved from VA to DC, without knowing about this school, and am happy I did...DC also has public Chinese and French schools, and plenty bilingual Spanish ones
3) There have been 2 meetings already and more coming, its work in progress and yes, to meet the deadline for application in March 2018.

Want to know more and get engaged? Please 'like" Tolstoy Academy in DC on FB. or email me at snegrust@gmail.com

Poka and thanks for this exciting exchange!

Anonymous wrote:All for a Russian immersion school! The more language schools, the better!! Russian, German, Japanese, Arabic. Whatever works to bring language instructions to people in DC!

What about at the Middle-school level?
It seems that we are now having a large number of schools at the elementary levels doing immersion (YY, Sela, MV, LAMB,...) and other doing "language classes" (Chinese at CMI, and others) but nothing at the middle-school level (beside DCI). (I've filled the survey to that effect).

For those who are arguing about the usefulness of learning a language or how "terrible these languages sound", I only shake my head in disbelief. It is just embarrassing to read. You live in the capital of the United State of America but sound as insular as a grandmother stuck in a small village (no offense to grandmothers, mine spoke 3 languages) and terribly narrow minded.
A sentence like "I agree that German and Russian are equally unpleasant-sounding languages. However, as a person with no Russian heritage, and given the current political climate, I would be embarrassed to say that my children attend a Russian immersion school " would be hilarious if it were not so sad...

Have you **ever** heard of Dostoyevsky? Pushkin? Chekhov?? (and yes, Tolstoy!)??
And for those who are not aware of, Russian scientists have nothing to be ashamed of (certainly compared to Germans!). Their contributions were often ignored because of the cold war and there is a clear difference of philosophy in the teaching of science -- less like Feynman always full of insights and more heavy on math.

I am not Russian and have no Russian heritage but I am a foreign-born American (French, another horrible sounding language ) and frankly cannot believe what I am reading.

Anyway -- Good luck to those trying to bring Russian (or any other language!) to DC!

Anonymous wrote:

snegrust wrote:Now that I logged in you can see better, it is a follow-up to my message above with info on the Russian public charter school. For those who care where it may be and other considerations, pls vote in an ongoing survey, its in your hands.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WGG77PK


and some statistics http://www.dcpcsb.org/evaluating/waitlist-data

again, we hope you will be in touch.

Schastlivo

This doesn't say where the school will be -- it only asks where respondents live.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP 12:56 - My children have attended the Embassy school. It is certainly geared towards the children of diplomats, but there are a handful of non-diplomats who attend. My children went there because we moved to Washington from Moscow unexpectedly and thought it would be more comfortable for them to stick with the system they knew. It is the Russian state curriculum, which as you probably know is a very specific thing. If you're interested for a child older than ?????? ?????, I think it would be very difficult to start.

I also know the people who are trying to start the Tolstoy Academy and they are thinking of it as an immersion program (like many others in the city) that also emphasizes the strengths of the Russian curriculum - math, science, classic literature.

I am happy that my children are bilingual in Russian and I think that, given the state of affairs between Russia and the US, Russian-language skills are likely to be in demand in the future.

Thank you! Is there an official way to contact someone from the embassy school? I could not find anything on their website. As to the charter, ideally, i'd send my childred to a good Russian after school program rather than a full immersion program. I feel that full immersion will alienate my kids and devoid them of a more traditional American childhood that I can't provide being an immigrant. I do want my kids to be bilingual, but I don't want them to feel foreign in their country of birth.

There is no final word on how full or partial the immersion would be, nor on the exact age at which the school would start. You are encouraged to contact people who are trying to start the school as they are seeking to hear preferences from parents. Vote https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WGG77PK