Nice infographic here.

Mandarin Chinese-English charter school seeking zoning board variance

SOUTH BRUNSWICK — A proposed Mandarin Chinese-English charter school that has drawn fire for seeking to draw students from the West Windsor-Plainsboro, Princeton and South Brunswick school districts has chosen a location in Middlesex County.

Princeton International Academy Charter School, or PIACS, came before the South Brunswick zoning board on April 14, seeking a zoning variance for 12 Perrine Rd. The building is currently zoned for office and commercial use, and PIACS wants a waiver to use it for educational purposes, said Parker Block, the school’s spokesman and one of its co-founders.

Zoning waivers for parking needs were also requested, said a South Brunswick planning board official.

Block said Helena May, a former PIACS board member, started a group called 12P Associates to buy the facility at 12 Perrine Rd. The current owner of the property is using part of the space as a liquor storage facility, Block said.

PIACS was set to open last September at the former St. Joseph’s seminary in Plainsboro, but could not obtain a certificate of occupancy or cross other hurdles in time. The charter school, approved in January 2010 by the state Department of Education, needed a variance and a site plan waiver from the Plainsboro Zoning Board to use the seminary site.

At the South Brunswick location, PIACS would share the space with Wing Hua International School, a privately operated Mandarin-English immersion school, which also wants to move to that location, Block said. One of PIACS’ board members is also on the board of that school.

If the zoning is not changed for educational purposes, then 12P Associates will not buy the Perrine Road building. PIACS has until June 30th, the deadline proposed by the state Department of Education, to submit all their paperwork, including a certificate of occupancy.

Read more here.

Charter Schools in Suburbia: More Argument Than Agreement

This report is part of a joint project between NJ Spotlight.com and the Patch.com network of community news sites to provide both a statewide and a local look at the politics of charter schools in many New Jersey communities, and the tensions that sometimes arise regarding their funding in an age of budget cutbacks.

Suburban charter schools almost sound like a contradiction in terms. After all, charters typically conjure up the image of families seeking alternatives to gritty urban schools.

Charters Across New Jersey

East Brunswick: Questioning Charter School’s Right to Exist

Morristown: Unity Charter May Be a Jewel, But It’s One With Some Costs

Gloucester: A Home Schooler Takes on the School Board

Hoboken: Can the Public Schools Compete, by Getting Better?

Livingston: How Many Mandarin Schools Is too Many?

Princeton: Everyone’s Mad About Mandarin

Red Bank: Charter Schools Face Budget Woes Too

South Brunswick: A Debate or a Shouting Match?

Teaneck: Innovation or Duplication?

But while some suburban charters have been in existence from the start in places like Princeton and Morristown, the small, independent schools are becoming a growing presence — and a growing source of tension as well.

A combination of factors are at work, not the least of which is Gov. Chris Christie’s push to expand charters statewide. Much of the attention has been on so-called boutique schools, with narrow focuses like Hebrew or Mandarin. That specialization is raising concerns in host communities as to why they have to support special-interest institutions.

But on the eve of this week’s budget votes, ongoing recession fears and tight public resources that have left everyone struggling for money underlie the tension. School districts in suburban and urban areas generally pay charters 90 percent of the district’s per-pupil costs.

Not every district is grumbling, by any means, but the complaints in districts like Princeton, East Brunswick and South Brunswick are getting louder.

NJ Spotlight and Patch.com have teamed up to examine the issues that have surfaced over the growing charter school movement in New Jersey, especially in suburban districts.

Read more here.

Learning Chinese is new craze at American schools

Last updated at 5:58 PM on 21st April 2011

Chinese is now the language du jour for parents who want their children to learn a second – and sometimes third – dialect.

The sudden rise is likely due to the economic growth of the country as parents want their children to have limitless opportunities in a global economy bringing Asia, the U.S. and Latin America closer together.

A lot of children who learn Chinese are often trilingual, due to one or maybe both Spanish speaking parents.

Children sit at desks marked with their name tags in Chinese at Broadway Elementary School in Venice, Los Angeles, which launched one of only two English-Mandarin Chinese dual-language immersion programmes in the Los Angeles Unified School District in 2010

School districts have expanded Chinese language programmes due to the rise of China in the global economy and students from a wide range of backgrounds have joined them.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1379312/Learning-Chinese-new-craze-American-schools.html#ixzz1KGzjpmDv

I had no idea there were so many videos up about the various immersion programs nationwide.

Barrington Illinois program, beginning in 2011:

Excelsior Elementary, Minnetonka, Minnesota

XinXing Elementary, Hopkins, Minnesota

College Park, San Mateo County

Superintendent of Schools James Crisfield will host an open discussion on the process of charter school applications Monday, May 9 at 7:45 p.m. in the Millburn High School auditorium.

The public can participate in a question-and-answer session with Crisfield and the Millburn Board of Education along with superintendents and Boards of Education from the Livingston, Maplewood-South Orange and West Orange districts.

Two groups of area residents have applied with the New Jersey Department of Education to start charter schools that would accept Millburn students, as well as students from the other districts whose representatives are invited to the meeting. Both schools, Han Mei Charter School and Hanyu International Academy Charter, would open in 2012 and offer Mandarin immersion at the elementary level.

In a phone interview with The Item of Millburn and Short Hills Tuesday, Crisfield said the idea of charter schools in areas like Millburn is “a great theory that completely falls on its face.”

If the charter schools are approved, Millburn would pay 90 percent of the average per-pupil cost of educating a child, he said. “It’s just cash off the top of our budget without a corresponding reduction in cost.”

More here.