Mandarin Immersion Parents Council

In about two years, the first wave of Mandarin immersion students in San Francisco’s public schools will be entering middle school and parents from Starr King Elementary and Jose Ortega Elementary are working to have an impact on how this unfolds.  Recently our middle school committee met to discuss what’s happening and decide on next steps. Here are notes from that meeting…

Action Items

• Katie: Coordinate upcoming meeting with the school district (see “Agenda” below)
• Renee: Arrange the location for the first 2010/2011 San Francisco MIPC meeting
• Beth: Schedule a meeting with our friends at the Chinese Immersion School

Middle School Committee Mission

We agree that the MIPC middle school committee should represent the interests of all the parents, even when these interests differ from the personal wishes of the committee members.  This implies reaching a better understanding of the larger parent community and it probably requires gathering additional information through a follow-on survey.

Several committee members felt that we should also communicate the district’s goals and policies to our families in order to help parents understand which options are likely and which are unlikely.  This may help to inform parents as they respond to the follow-on survey and encourage them to concentrate their energies on realistic outcomes.

Chinese Immersion School at De Avila

We plan to meet with parents from the Chinese Immersion School at DeAvila and see if it makes sense to collaborate on the question of middle school.  The big advantage is that it would double the number of families talking to the district about a combined Chinese middle school program.  Our questions right now include…

• How would a combined program handle children entering middle school with different levels of Mandarin experience?
• How would we reconcile the fact that CIS students learn traditional characters, while Starr King and Jose Ortega students learn simplified characters?
• What does the district think about combining the programs starting in sixth grade?
• Do the two parent communities have enough overlap in their goals to make a collaboration worthwhile?

Beth will be setting up a meeting in the near future so that we can talk to representatives from CIS and get a better sense of what they want and where they are in the process.  We will also be discussing this in our upcoming meeting with the district (see agenda below).

Follow-on Survey

The committee discussed the results from our first survey as well as the anecdotal feedback members have received since then.  Based on this, we are planning to conduct a shorter, follow-on survey to gather additional information and help clarify open questions.  Here are the highlights of that discussion…

• Were parents thinking of specific programs at the schools they selected, or were they concentrating on location?
• What kinds of programs are parents hoping for?  For example…
  1. A dedicated “World Languages” middle school that has multiple immersion programs?
  2. A dedicated “Chinese immersion” middle school that has students from various Chinese programs?
  3. Adding Mandarin immersion courses at an existing middle school with spare capacity?  Which schools would be acceptable for this option?
  4. Other?
• How will parents react to concrete proposals for specific programs at specific schools?
• How can we best communicate the district’s point-of-view to the parents?
• If the district is giving especially negative signals for a given option, how do we communicate this to the parents?
• How would the school district’s guidance affect or limit the questions we pose in our second survey?
• Given their current state of planning, what other questions might the district like us to pose to the parents?
• Would the Chinese Immersion School families wish to take part in our follow-on survey?

Recent Discussions with the District

We have already gotten some limited feedback from the district, especially on the question of a theoretical dedicated Chinese immersion school.  Their question is: How would such a school  square with the goal of reducing racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students?  They also suggested that we review the school district’s “2010 student assignment policy” when considering which options to propose.  Their goal is to create a program that is consistent with this policy.

Upcoming School District Meeting

We are planning to meet with officials of the school district in order to understand their thinking and hopefully start a dialog.  Our goal is to keep our parents informed and also find ways to give the district information about the feelings and wishes of our parents.  Here is a draft agenda for that meeting…

Communicating with Parents

• What information do you need from the Mandarin immersion parents that would be helpful to the District in making middle school decisions?
• Besides our follow-on survey, what other ways do you suggest that we gather information?
• What questions would you like to see in our follow-on survey?

Process and Transition

• What is the process involved with establishing a new program like this one in a middle school?
• Has the district already identified potential sites (for locating the Mandarin middle school program)?
• What will the program look like the first year (2012/2013)?  How about the second year ?  How about the third?
• How do you think the ramp-up will work during these first three years?
• Do you think it likely that the program will move during this transition period?
• If the Mandarin program becomes part of an existing middle school, how can we work with the district to insure that the needs of MI students are met as one strand within that larger school?  We have heard that Spanish immersion strands placed in middle schools have sometimes felt short-changed because the GE programs were larger and their needs greater.

Mandarin pathways

• What can the Mandarin Immersion Parents Council do to assist the district in creating our middle school pathway?
• What do you think the best possible Mandarin middle school program for our students would look like?
  • How can we help make that happen?
• In general, how will we get critical mass for Chinese immersion at a middle school?
• How will the feeder pathway work for Mandarin? Will Starr King and Jose Ortega students move together?
• Does the district have a plan for how it treats students in immersion programs and how they get assigned to a school/program?  Will the student be automatically assigned to the feeder middle school (non-immerison) OR will the student be automatically enrolled in the immersion program (wherever that may be).
• Could this program include two periods or possibly more in Mandarin?

Further Discussions

• Would it be appropriate for us to start talking with principals at specific schools? If so, which ones would you recommend?
• Who else do you think we should be meeting with at this time?

Chinese Immersion School at De Avila

• What is the current district thinking about how CIS might fit into this middle school?
• Do you think it’s possible to combine the Starr King/Ortega students and the CIS students into a single school location?
• Will the CIS students be coming in at the same level of Mandarin proficiency as the Mandarin immersion students?  If not, how would we address this?
• If we combined CIS, Starr King, and Ortega students, would we likely do this at a “Chinese school”, or would the combined group be inserted into an existing underutilized middle school?