How to showcase your district’s immersion program? Say the Pledge of Allegiance at a School Board meeting – in Mandarin

Lafayette Daily Advertiser, Lousiana

By William Taylor Potter

April 6, 2023

About a dozen students from Corporal Michael Middlebrook Elementary School wowed attendees at Wednesday’s Lafayette Parish School Board meeting when they recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

Why was their recitation so awe-inspiring? They did it in Mandarin Chinese.

The students were part of the Lafayette Parish School System’s Chinese immersion program, one of the three language immersion programs the district offers. The Chinese program is at Middlebrook Elementary, while other schools in the district host French and Spanish programs.

Click here to see the students at the meeting.

School board member Kate Labue said she and Superintendent Irma Trosclair have been working to find ways to showcase the work the immersion programs have been doing during the board meetings. They invited Middlebrook Principal Courtney Breaux to tell the board and attendees about how the program has benefited the students involved.

Please read more here.