A private French immersion school in Brooklyn, New York that added a Mandarin track in the 2019-2020 school year failed to open this fall and parents are suing, saying the school owed $6.1 million back rent and demanded tuition deposits while never telling them how dire the financial situation was.

The Science, Language & Arts International School abruptly shut down operations 13 days before school was to start, but kept tuition deposits of up to half the $30,720 families had paid for the year, a class-action suit filed by more than 25 families alleges.

“On August 27, 2021—or 13 days before the scheduled start of the 2021-2022 academic year—Plaintiffs and the putative class received an email sent on behalf of the SLA Board advising them that SLA would not open at all for the 2021- 2022 academic year and that their children would be required to attend school elsewhere,” the suit says.

According to the lawsuit, the school didn’t tell parents that it had not fully paid the monthly rent and real estate taxes due under the lease for its main campus location at 9 Hanover Place in Brooklyn as far back as October 2018.

It also didn’t tell families that on January 29, 2021 the school received written notice from its landlord that its lease on its campus had been terminated effective February 12, 2021 for nonpayment of rent, taxes, fees, or utilities, the suit alleges.

When the landlord began eviction proceedings against the school, it owed unpaid rent of $6.1 million, the lawsuit alleges.

According to the lawsuit, this was happening even as the school told parents they had to pay at least half their tuition to hold a place in the 2021-2022 class.

Some email notes from Jennifer Wilkins, the school’s director, are quoted in the lawsuit:

May 28, 2021

Summary of SLA Community Meeting: “SLA will be in session next year. Your children will have classes, and teachers, and the standard of education that we have always maintained.”

June 2, 2021

Community Q&A: Will SLA be open next year? Will this impact SLA’s ability to go up to 8th grade? Yes, operations will proceed as normal. We still intend to grow to 8th grade.

July 16, 2021

Wilkin, sent an email to the Class categorically stating that “a rumor that SLA might not reopen,” was “not true.”

The school’s website, http://www.sla.org, is no longer in operation. Wilkin’s LinkedIn page still lists her as the director of the school:

“A published author and leader-innovator in education, Jennifer Wilkin is the founding director of Science, Language & Arts International School (SLA), is the owner-director of Bonjour/Hola/Ni Hao NY camps, and consults on matters related to curriculum and language acquisition. Her books have been published by National Geographic Learning, Macmillan, and Cambridge University Press.

Science, Language & Arts International School (SLA) is a Nursery through Grade 8 private school focused on hands-on science, arts, and math, providing children with a rich and rigorous multilingual education in French and Mandarin. SLA is an inclusive, anti-bias school.”

I have reached out to Wilkins via Linked In. I will also remove it from the list of Mandarin immersion schools, which will be updated in the coming week.

It’s becoming easier to find Mandarin immersion preschools in many cities where there are Mandarin immersion school-age programs. But many parents wonder how well they work and what they should be looking for when touring preschools.

Thankfully, our friends over at the Chinese Early Language and Immersion Network (CELIN) at the Asia Society convened a meeting last February to look into the matter. Held in New York City with leaders of the early Chinese education schools, universities, and state initiatives, they have now released an excellent paper on what they found. It’s aimed more at educators than parents, but as with all the CELIN briefs, there’s a lot that will be interesting to parents.

Here’s the link to the report.

These are the questions they sought to answer:

1. Who are the providers of and key players in Chinese immersion preschool education in 2020–2021?
   What are the successes and common issues, needs, and challenges that they face?
2. What does a quality Chinese immersion preschool look like?
3. What does research inform us about the role and value of preschool education? How does Chinese immersion preschool education contribute to a child’s growth, development in bilingualism and biliteracy, and school achievement over time?

Also, definitely check out their other briefs here.

This is from last year, but as St. Michael’s Catholic Academy is one of only four religious Mandarin immersion programs I know of, it’s interesting to see what they’re up to.

As part of their celebration of Catholic Schools Week, students at St. Michael’s Catholic Academy in Flushing observed the Chinese New Year with a variety of age-appropriate lessons and activities in their classrooms on Friday, Feb. 12.

The activities included studying Chinese artwork, the 12 Chinese zodiac animals, cultural and food traditions, as well as crafting lanterns and making dumplings.

Please read more here.

By: Leah Pezzetti May 28, 2021

LAKESIDE, Calif. (KGTV) – A couple dozen of the seniors getting ready to graduate from El Capitan High School in June are not only wrapping up their high school careers, but a lifetime of unique cultural and language studies.

The Grossmont Union High School District partners with Lakeside Union School District elementary schools in a program called the Global Language and Leadership Program, which teaches children Spanish and Mandarin starting in Kindergarten, resulting in bilingual and trilingual high school graduates.

Please read more here.

The short answer is, we don’t really know all the way out to high school. I haven’t seen any national studies looking at how students do when they reach the end of high school.

Anecdotally, motivated students in districts with strong programs seem to do well, but how do students do overall? It’s the perfect project for someone getting a Ph.D. in education (hint hint) but so far I haven’t seen any studies on it.

Which makes this news snippet out of Utah all the more interesting. Parents in St. George (near Zion and Bryce Canon) are upset because too few of their high school are passing the Advanced Placement test for Chinese Language and Culture.

Harmony Vanderhorst, a local parent with three children involved in Chinese immersion classes, said the rate of students passing the 10th grade exams to demonstrate their Chinese fluency was extremely low.”

“The ball has really been dropped with the Chinese program,” Vanderhorst said. “There are some huge gaps that need to be addressed. I think the program has amazing potential, but it definitely needs to be readdressed.” 

See the full article from the St. George News here.

I’d be curious to hear how students in your school district do when they get to high school and take the AP exam. Feel free to comment below.

Read more here.

Avenues: The World School, which includes Mandarin and Spanish immersion strands, is opening a California outpost in San Jose. The for-profit school network has schools in New York, São Paulo, Brazil and Shenzhen, China. The San Jose school had planned to open this year but due to COVID-19 will be opening next year instead. It’s already purchased a building in the city and has hired much of its staff. It’s to be called Avenues: Silicon Valley, and the school plans to open in the fall of 2022.

SAN JOSE (KPIX) — A New York private school plans to launch a location in San Jose, raising the benchmark for expectations and tuition.

The Avenues, headquartered in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan, has finalized the purchase of 550 Meridian Avenue, a 77-thousand square foot, three-story office building in the midtown area of San Jose, in a $27 million all-cash transaction.

Read more here.

And another story here. And here. Here’s a story about the network’s flagship school in New York.

Language Immersion Elementary School Fostering Young Global Ambassadors

By Taylor Bruck Cleveland

March 16, 2021

CLEVELAND — Some native English-speaking children in northeast Ohio have the unique experience of attending school where all their work is in another language, and they absolutely love it. 

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What You Need To Know

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in the United States, only about twenty percent of Americans are fluent in two or more languages
The Global Ambassadors Language Academy (GALA) in Cleveland is working to increase that percentage
GALA is started in 2016 and is currently a K-6 school but will expand with each graduating class until they become a K-8th grade school
GALA is currently enrolling students, you can learn more at galacleveland.org

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“On my mom’s side, there is my grandma and grandfather that do know Spanish and I want to continue learning so I can speak Spanish better,” said 7-year-old Ilana Little, who attends the Global Ambassadors Language Academy.

The school, also known as GALA, is the only Mandarin immersion school in Ohio, and the first dual language immersion school in northeast Ohio.

Please read more here.