A new Intergenerational school and an immersion school in Mandarin and Spanish planned for Cleveland

Nancy Szilagyi, a teacher at the Near West Intergenerational School, gives students Madeline Schmidt, 6, left, and Farrah Albritton, 8, some feedback on the stories they wrote and advice on how they might be improved.

Lynn Ischay, The Plain Dealer

Print

By Patrick O’Donnell, The Plain Dealer 
on February 12, 2014 at 9:30 AM, updated February 12, 2014 at 9:33 AM

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cleveland could soon have a third Intergenerational charter school and a new foreign language immersion school that aims to teach Mandarin and Spanish to English speakers.

Both proposed new charter schools were recommended to the Cleveland school board Tuesday night by Eric Gordon, the district’s Chief Executive Officer.

Please read more here.

===

Families in Cleveland, Ohio are working to develop  Global Ambassadors Language Academy, GALA.  GALA will be the first Mandarin Immersion school in the entire state of Ohio and the first one way immersion school in Northeast Ohio.  Very exciting news today in our newspaper:

GALA will be the first one-way Spanish immersion school in Northeast Ohio and the first Mandarin immersion school in the state of Ohio!  

GALA’s mission is to ensure each student achieves lifelong academic success, bilingualism, and appreciation for diversity, in an engaging and academically rigorous language immersion environment.

A nice example of a Mandarin parent group helping get the word out about their program. This group is in Orange County, Calif.

Mandarin Chinese Language Immersion Magnet School

On a rainy winter evening, the end of a bustling school day, some parents gathered at Kim Harrington’s cozy cottage in West University Place. They were members of the Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) at the Mandarin Chinese Language Immersion Magnet School (MCLIMS).

Although the dual language school is only in its second year of operation, it has already garnered a respectable reputation for its strong PTO. And Harrington was coordinating the school’s Chinese New Year Festival. “Here’s an example of how involved the parentsare: we have 333 students, and 230 parents signed up to volunteer for the festival,” she says. “The parents contribute a lot. The teachers get help everyday with setting up materials for the classroom, so the teachers can devote more time to the students.”

Please read more here.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Here’s one family’s story.

Our friends at Parents of African Americans Students Studying Chinese (PAASSC) have these great posters for sale. Check their newsletter out here. Here’s their website. They go on sale Feb. 24.

Please read more here.

The school’s site on the program is here.

A wonderful video of kids who speak lots of languages proudly telling the world they speak English and another language–and they’re American!

It was made after a flap over the multilingual Coke ad that aired during the SuperBowl, which featured kids singing America the Beautiful in multiple languages.

This video was made by Stephanie Meade, the mom who runs InCulture Parent. It’s a wonderful site for families raising bilingual kids. [Hint: you should all be reading it.]

It’s popping up in Mandarin blogs as well as one of the kids speaks Mandarin. You can read her take on it here.

Enjoy.