Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education

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  • SF Middle School – New Developments

    Last Tuesday three other parents from the San Francisco Mandarin Immersion Parents Council and I met with program administrator Kevin Chávez to discuss the San Francisco school district’s plans for Mandarin immersion in middle school.  We came armed with a list of questions, but the information he was providing quickly overtook our agenda.

    For example, Kevin revealed that the current recommendation is to find a common middle school for the entire population of students from both schools, including all students from both general education and language programs.  Even more surprisingly, he said that because the new student assignment system is being rolled-out this year, we would learn the name of our designated middle school very shortly.  In fact, school board commissioner Rachel Norton reported that the district will publish draft “middle school feeder patterns” in just three weeks.

    So facts on the ground are evolving quickly.  Parents who wish to be involved in the process will need to be active and engaged during these unfolding events.

    Here are our notes from the meeting…

    Attendees

    Kevin Chávez (SFUSD), Renee Tan (Starr King Parent), Ascanio Piomelli (Starr King parent), Kellyn Dong (Jose Ortega parent), Scott Olson (Jose Ortega parent).

    Kevin Chávez is the Dual Immersion / Special Education Supervisor, English Learner Support Services, Academics and Professional Development

    Disclaimer

    None of the concepts outlined below that Kevin shared with us are finalized.  The plan is to go through a process of community feedback where families from the different sites can give their input.  The district expects to gather this feedback and have a plan in place by November 2010.

    Introduction

    The school assignment process is changing dramatically for the 2011-2012 school year at all major entry levels (K, middle school, and high school). The Mandarin Immersion Parent Council met with Kevin Chavez to understand the process of selecting a middle school option for the Mandarin Immersion programs at Jose Ortega and Starr King, as well as getting some clarification on whether or not Chinese Immersion School at DeAvila could feed into the Mandarin Immersion program at the middle school level. Our presumption was that the two programs within each school would move to a common school and that the MIPC could have input into the process of deciding which middle school that would be. What became evident at the beginning of the meeting is that we came in with some incorrect presumptions. Below is the summary.

    Middle School Assignment Priorities

    Key Goals: Keeping Communities Together, Fostering Diverse Schools, and Avoiding Language Isolation

    Kevin explained that School Board policy P5101 will guide the district through the Middle School assignment process which pays particular attention to maintaining (or creating) broadly diverse schools, socioeconomically, racially, etc.

    Kevin said the District’s general goal is to keep all students from a given elementary school together as they move to middle school, so that communities formed in elementary school continue into middle school. He also said the Mandarin immersion programs in both Jose Ortega and Starr King are small, so the District is exploring the possibility of offering Mandarin immersion in only one middle school. Given these two facts, the current recommendation is for all programs (Gen-Ed and MI) at both Jose Ortega and Starr King to feed into the same middle school.  In other words, even though the schools are in different parts of the city, their common Mandarin programs would potentially link them for the purpose of middle school assignment. Kevin added that his team’s recommendation is also to prioritize avoiding “linguistic isolation,” by attempting to cluster multiple language pathways in a middle school.

    Planning Deadlines, Opportunities for Input

    If Jose Ortega and Starr King feed into the same middle school, then our middle school destiny will emerge sooner than we thought.  The feeder middle school that the District picks for Jose Ortega and Starr King for the 2010/2011 school year will also be our Mandarin immersion middle school in 2011/2012 and into the future. This means the District must define and advertise the feeder middle school patterns before the Enrollment Fair in November.

    Kevin explained that the Special Assistant to the Superintendent, Orla O’Keefe, is one of the key facilitators involved with collecting community input into the new school assignment process for Superintendent Carlos Garcia. She has been working with assistant superintendants and other central administrators from EPC, ELSS, and Multilingual Education/World Languages in considering all language pathways:  Newcomer, Dual Immersion, Biliteracy, English Plus, etc. FLES (Foreign Language Elementary School) and world language programs have also been taken into consideration. These pathways & programs are identified in the Lau Plan (the District plan for serving English Learners) and the Multilingual Master Plan. The administrators’ input has been used to inform work around elementary to middle school feeders as related to the new Student Assignment Redesign system as they move ahead. Other programs, such as the International Baccalaureate (IB), have also been taken into consideration.

    Kevin indicated that immediately after our meeting he was meeting with District colleagues to discuss a community input process for the language pathways overlay. He agreed that, if we remind him, he will share with us, or put us in touch with the appropriate person coordinating, whatever process is designed.

    Finding a Middle School

    Kevin indicated that as it decides which elementary schools will feed into which middle schools, the District will aim to “balance” a number of factors, including socio-economic and racial diversity, API scores, language pathways, other programs (e.g. International Baccalaureate, special ed, etc.), geographic proximity and transportation availability.

    Another part of this process is considering existing middle school programs, and thinking about where to establish new programs.  Immersion programs exist at Marina, Francisco, Lick, Hoover, and Everett, with a “maintenance” program at Mann.  These middle school programs lack enough capacity so the district will be building more programs at more schools.

    In order to avoid “linguistic isolation” by assigning schools with only one language pathway to a particular middle school, Kevin indicated that the District would prefer that other elementary schools assigned to a particular middle school also have a language program, either an immersion, biliteracy, or FLES program.  Depending on the size of the middle school that Jose Ortega and Starr King feed into, he mentioned that JOES and Starr King would possibly feed into a middle school with two elementary schools that have a Spanish language program. If a middle school would host more than one language program, the District could offer a third language option to students, and also increase the overall diversity of the student population.

    We asked Kevin if he had any target in mind for the relative size of the language programs at a given middle school, in order to “avoid linguistic isolation.”  In other words, what percentage would be some sort of language pathway (i.e. Mandarin or Spanish immersion or a biliteracy program) and what percentage would be general education.  He did not share any particular targets (either in terms of absolute numbers of students or as a percentage of the middle school student body).

    Unlikelihood of Combining with Programs from Cantonese Schools

    Kevin was not encouraging about whether the CIS DeAvila middle school program would feed into the Mandarin Immersion Middle School program. He pointed out that while both West Portal and CIS DeAvila introduce Mandarin to their students starting in the primary grades, they only receive Mandarin academic instruction starting in upper grades. He has been informed by content specialists that by sixth grade it would not be possible to have them attend the same classes as the MI students given the current conditions.

    What will “Middle School Language Immersion” Look Like?

    The language immersion program will be at least two periods per day, or at least two classes taught in the target language.  Both Spanish immersion and Cantonese immersion currently teach Social Studies and Language Arts in the target language.  Middle schools vary between 6-8 classes/periods per day.  A big constraint in ramping up middle school language immersion is finding teachers with the right skill sets.  This is especially tricky in seventh and eighth grade where the district must hire teachers with single-subject teaching credentials who are also fluent in the target language. (This may not be the case when classes are “cored” at the middle school level. We need to investigate this further.) Teacher recruitment and retention is always an issue.

    Next Steps

    Wendy Cheong will be the primary contact for questions regarding the Mandarin immersion middle school program as she will be focusing on K-12 articulation.  Kevin will be her supervisor.  Moving forward we should work with Wendy to help address the particulars about the Mandarin program, including the middle school development piece.  Daisy Chan will also be involved to provide continuity from the work done last year, but her emphasis will be on the Cantonese programs.

    We mentioned that some parents had wanted to meet with middle school principals.  Kevin was not sure this would be a productive activity.  There will be many factors used to determine which elementary schools feed into which middle schools.  In his opinion, conversations between particular parent groups and principals are probably not the best way to influence the process.

    Kevin said that he or another district representative would be interested in attending a future MIPC MS committee meeting.

    We will follow up with him on how our community will be able to share its input before decisions are finalized.

  • The Wall Street Journal weighs in on the NJ charter – lessons for would-be Mandarin charters

    Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2010

    By JOY RESMOVITS

    New Jersey is preparing to announce the confirmation of at least six new charter schools this week, but proposed charters in Princeton, Teaneck and Flemington won’t be on the list, dealing a blow to a movement to widen school choice to affluent districts.

    A zoning technicality tripped up the Princeton International Academy Charter School, a Mandarin-immersion program that faced strong opposition from the three school districts whose students it would serve. When nearing an already-extended July 15 deadline for the state to approve the school’s certificate of occupancy before granting final approval of its charter, the districts raised legal questions about the charter’s variance request to occupy a Plainsboro seminary building.

    CHARTER

    Emile Wamsteker for The Wall Street Journal
    Elizabeth Pilliod and son Jules, who would have attended the Princeton International Academy Charter School.

    That, in turn, postponed a zoning hearing that could have given the school its certificate of occupancy. Last week, the commissioner of education declined the school’s request for another extension, forcing dozens of families to find an alternative for the upcoming school year.

    The decision comes about a month after Trillium Charter School, a school in Flemington, also had to stop planning prematurely. Trillium conceded its charter in June, when the state was concerned it would not have enough students registered to meet a deadline.

    “We learned that it’s hard to set one up unless you’re making it an alternative to a poor school district,” said Brian Chizever, Trillium’s would-be founder.

    Likewise, Charter High School for Environmental and Civics Studies in Teaneck withdrew its application in April. Faced with funding issues, it never even began recruiting students.

    At the heart of these New Jersey cases is the question of who can and should be served by charter schools, which receive public money but can be run privately. School-choice advocates assert that charters should be open to parents who want something different from what public schools offer. They argue that demand alone should be the test.

    Those who oppose charters in high-performing areas—a group that often encompasses the public-school districts themselves—say that charters are only viable in urban areas where parents are faced with failing schools. “Within the public-school system, we need more definition around the circumstances and conditions for when choice is necessary,” said Judith Wilson, superintendent of the Princeton Regional School District, who called the Mandarin-immersion school a “narrowly defined option.”

    About 160 families in the Princeton area wanted that choice, despite the district’s argument that language immersion is a luxury amid budget cuts. Lydia Grebe, a nurse practitioner who moved to Plainsboro two weeks ago to send her daughter to second grade at the new charter school, is one of them.

    “This is being ripped away like a Band-Aid,” she said. “I’m stunned.”

    More here…

  • Charter foes quash Princeton, NJ Mandarin immersion school plans

    New charter school won’t open in fall

    Friday, July 16, 2010

    By Carmen Cusido
    STAFF WRITER

    PLAINSBORO — A group that wants to open a controversial new charter school here with an emphasis on instruction in Mandarin Chinese has run out of time to submit the necessary documents for a September opening, the state Department of Education has decided.

    Princeton International Academy Charter School, or PIACS, had until yesterday to obtain a certificate of occupancy and cross other hurdles, but failed to complete the township approval process in time.

    PIACS officials immediately blamed public schools for their interference, which included a legal challenge to the charter application and lobbying efforts. The school would have drawn tax dollars and other resources from three public school systems: West Windsor-Plainsboro, Princeton Regional and South Brunswick.

    Read more here.

  • Vancouver BC to finally get Mandarin program – in 2012

    Vancouver school trustees have resurrected a proposal to launch a Mandarin bilingual program for the city’s students.

    Proponents hoped the program would be approved for a September startup, but that idea was nixed as the Vancouver School Board struggled to balance its budget that called for more than $17 million in cuts.

    In late June, however, COPE trustee Jane Bouey moved a motion, which trustees passed unanimously, to introduce the program one year later—in September 2011.

    Bouey believes the program is important even though the district is in tough financial times and laid off staff and cut programs and services.

    “It is embarrassing that Edmonton has had such a program for 25 years and Vancouver, where there is a large Mandarin speaking population and thus many opportunities to practise the language, only has a late Mandarin immersion program at Jamieson,” she told the Courier. “It is our board’s hope to expand language programs available in the city. The opportunity to learn other languages is something that should be available to all children.”

    The program may be based at John Norquay elementary at 4710 Slocan St, although Bouey said that decision hasn’t been finalized.

    Read more here.

  • We need books for our kids in Mandarin

    Finding books for our kids to read in Chinese is a problem, especially for parents who don’t themselves read Chinese.
    To help get more books into our kids’ hands, Mandarin Immersion Parents Council parents with children in 3rd and 4th grade met last week with  Xiangyan Liu, the Course Materials Editor for NanHai bookstore’s Chinese Language Materials department, in Millbrae, Calif.

    The kids spent two hours going through over 200 books, telling Ms. Liu which ones they understood, which ones were too baby-ish and which ones were too boring.

    The staff at Nanhai did a good job of pulling together what books there were, but the pickings were slim. In the end the Mandarin immersion students did a whole lot of sorting and less finding than we might have liked, but we all knew it was a difficult assignment.

    We look forward to working more with Nanhai, and other companies and publishers, to find appropriate Chinese books that our  kids will love to read.

  • Some great immersion readings for parents

    Here are some really wonderful links on Language Immersion Education from the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition:

  • Mandarin immersion school in New Jersey popular with parents

    Lots of families are signing their kids up for a new, Mandarin immersion charter school opening in Princeton, N.J., many from non-Mandarin speaking homes. However local residents oppose the school because it’s a charter.

    =====

    [From Town Topics, Princeton’s Weekly newspaper}

    New Charter School Will Be Challenged At Plainsboro Meeting

    Ellen Gilbert

    The remaining hurdle for the recently-approved Princeton International Academy Charter School (PIACS) will be addressed on Wednesday evening, July 7, when the Plainsboro Zoning board will be asked to okay the school’s request for a use variance so that it can occupy the St. Joseph Seminary premises at 75 Mapleton Road.

    It is anticipated, however, that opponents of PIACS will use the meeting as an opportunity to express opposition to the school, which plans to offer Mandarin language immersion and an IB (International Baccalaureate) curriculum beginning with grades Kindergarten through two, and expanding a grade each year after.

    “I feel sorry for the Plainsboro Zoning Board,” said Princeton Board of Education President Rebecca Cox. “There’s no way that Plainsboro residents have any say about whether or not a charter school can open in their town.” The fact that PIACS is a nonprofit, she added, means that Plainsboro will not be able to collect taxes from them.

    While Plainsboro residents haven’t had a say about the presence of PIACS in their community, Ms. Cox indicated that she and others will have plenty to say at the Wednesday meeting about why the new charter school should not be allowed to open, particularly at a time when “money is tight and public school programs are being cut.”

    “People don’t understand the math,” said Ms. Cox. “While it appears that they will be taking just three or four children from each elementary school, it adds up to between $60,000 and $70,000 dollars, which is the salary of a classroom teacher.”

    A lease agreement with the owners of St. Joseph’s has been finalized, according to PIACS spokesman Parker Block, and all of the documentation necessary for receiving the charter has been submitted to the Department of Education with this one exception. “The property in question was created to house a school and has been used for that purpose by the seminarians for decades until 1995, Mr. Block said. “So in essence we are requesting to use the property for the purpose it was intended.” Ms. Cox countered by noting that PIACS only has a one year lease at St. Joseph’s, which has, she believes, another commitment for the following year. She also expressed concern about the presence of religious symbols at the building.

    Parents of children enrolling in PIACS do not, apparently, share these concerns. As of the June 30th deadline, the school had 159 students registered from within the South Brunswick/Princeton/West Windsor region. “The students come from over 30 different schools in the region, so the impact on any one school was indeed mitigated,” noted Mr. Parker. There is currently a waiting list of over 60 out-of-region students interested in attending the school.

    “PIACS has filled its kindergarten and the second-grade classes and has started releasing the unfilled first-grade seats to the out-of-region waiting list,” reported Mr. Block. “We will continue accepting applicants for all three waiting lists. In-region applicants will receive priority.”

    “Contrary to the predictions of those who opposed the school, the families of the students who have registered are quite diverse,” he noted. “Over 50 percent of the students come from families where no Mandarin is spoken. The community is multi-national, with parents coming from Kenya, Korea, Germany, Mexico, Nigeria, England, Russia, Japan, and France.”

    “Total immersion is the way to go,” observed art historian Elizabeth Pilliod, a Princeton resident and parent of an incoming PIACS first grader. “We were in Holland for five months for my husband’s work, and enrolled our son in a school where only Dutch was spoken. Within a month he understood everything. He loved it.”

    Read more here.