Anonymous wrote:Current bilingual family here. We’re happy with the academic level and have not noticed behavior problems or just „anyone being accepted“ as the PP mentioned. It is certainly self selective and the vast majority of kids in later elementary are bilingual or German households. Unless you are very highly motivated and are willing to employ a German Aupair and/or near daily tutor to help with German I would not advise the school. They have numerous extra classes to help kids with their German but it is not meant for total beginners. The few non German households I see in our kids classes struggle. There are of course exceptions. The German families who leave the school are typically leaving because they want their kids to be immersed in English and not because of the academic level of GISW. All classes at GISW except for English are taught in German.

Dear current bilingual family - very interested in YOUR experience with GIS specifically, as we are also bilingual (both parents speak and read both English and German, attended school in both US and Germany. We are thinking about enrolling our son, who speaks and reads German but is in public US elementary school and exposed to German only at home and during rare visits to relatives, when he gets to 5th grade (or possibly later) so he retains his German through interaction with German peers/classmates and not just parents/grandparents. As it is, he is "losing" German because nobody except close relatives interacts with him in German. We do not live near the school or any other German school now, but may be moving to the DC area in a few years - hence the interest in this option.
Please convey more impressions/experiences about the school, what the current makeup of the student body is (mostly Botschaft/Bundeswehr/Aldi/Liedl expats or also WB/IMF, other bilingual/bicultural families?) and whether, as others have commented, students answer in English when asked questions in German during class...Are there any current bilingual families one could ask? I doubt the school would divulge their contact info...We're particularly interested in the HIGHER grades, as most of the attrition due to alleged behavioral problems or academic inadequacies seems to happen there.
Thanks in advance for your help!

Bump

There is an immersion school in the southern part of FCPS. I don't think it's oversubscribed, so, as long as you live in FCPS, you could probably get your kid in, as long as you handle the transportation.

There's also the German School's Saturday School as well as classes at the Goethe INstitute.

None of these are going to make your kid fluent in German unless one parent speaks the language exclusively at home. But it would be a start and set them up well should they ever want to develop real fluency.