Anonymous wrote:I think there are more concerns about separating the religion from the language at SELA than at, say, Yu Ying.

A lot of very basic Hebrew phrases have a religious connotation - for example, Shalom aleichem ??????? ????????.

In English: "Goodbye" < "God be with ye"
In Hebrew: "Shalom" = "peace"
Come to think of it, yes, it is difficult to separate religion from language. Religious concepts infuse all languages. Modern Hebrew no more than others. It's a living language.

Anonymous wrote:It was also philosophical. This is the first year that they have included Mandarin goals in IEPS. It is a great step in the right direction and I'm pleased with the forward progress.

Thanks! I wasn't aware of this since we haven't had our annual IEP meeting. Good to know.

YY also instituted home visits by the special Ed team for kids with IEPs. All due to the new Sp Ed coordinator who was promoted from within. I did not know she was Teach for America but I know she went to Cornell. She is fabulous and the kids love her.

It was also philosophical. This is the first year that they have included Mandarin goals in IEPS. It is a great step in the right direction and I'm pleased with the forward progress.

It probably has more to do with YY being a 5 yr old charter and moving into it's permanent building last year. Still working out the kinks. There are many families with ties to Bridges and the admin takes inclusion seriously. It's not like the improvements mentioned dropped out of the sky. They had been searching for a Mandarin speaking special ed teacher for awhile: Finding a bilingual Mandarin speaker with a Masters in Sp Ed is not easy. So partly it was staffing and space issues.

Many of the Sp Ed kids are exceptionally good at Mandarin so it looks like whatever they're doing is working.

Anonymous wrote:You could be partially right on that because she was notoriously opposed to inclusion and special ed services. She moved to spearhead the DCI, a different position that doesn't influence the day to day operations of the school.

I think she presented at the last YY open house I went to. I don't automatically believe everything written on DCUM, so I take this with a grain of salt. But even though my DC has so far always performed way ahead of his milestones, I am fiercely supportive of inclusion and special Ed and would be very upset if we got in and found this to be true. Especially at a bilingual charter you need those services in. Place and strongly performing.

You could be partially right on that because she was notoriously opposed to inclusion and special ed services. She moved to spearhead the DCI, a different position that doesn't influence the day to day operations of the school.

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if getting the Executive Director out of the building helped there? She always resented funds spent on Special Ed, but it seemed as if the staff tried to do right by kids and families.

What does that mean - how was the Exec Dir "gotten out of the building"?