Mandarin Immersion Parents Council

From Tammy Radmer,

SF/Advocates for Multilingual Excellence, Monroe Elementary and James Lick Middle School Spanish Immersion Parent

To my listservs & blind carbon copied folks,

Okay, I know some of you are flinching at the thought of yet another evening meeting, and have no tolerance for another dry presentation on the merits of immersion, but you have to go to this one! I’ve seen perfectly sane SFUSD district staff & teachers practically melt as they discuss Dr. Myriam Met.  They froth at the mouth as they discuss her interactive style of presenting, & expound on the fact that she knows everything there is to know about immersion.

I can only imagine that the evening would be of interest to everybody, but especially to principals, teachers, & staff, as well as parents with kids already in immersion, or prospective parents & community members wanting to learn more about it (please forward this email to whomever you think might be interested). before i go furthur, i want to acknowledge Elizabeth Weise (Mandarin Immersion Parents Council, SF/AME, & Starr King parent), and Margaret Peterson and Maria Martinez (SFUSD’s Multilingual Education/World Language Department) for helping make this happen.  Sorry if I left someone out.

We’re at an important crossroads, right now, with the new SFUSD administration mapping out their strategies for improving & expanding language programs throughout san francisco.  I encourage parents, principals, & staff to continually learn more about language programs such as immersion (as well as biliteracy programs for english learners & FLES programs for target language learners), & to be sure their opinions are heard as the district creates & rolls out it’s plans. the more information we have, the better we can advocate for whatever it is that we believe in.

-Tammy

Items discussed at the meeting of February 20, 2009

1) We have a website: Miparentscouncil.org
2) Summer Camps offering Mandarin
3) Mandarin Immersion Parents Council committees
4) CAIS Chinese Education Conference March 13th- 15th
5) Next Meeting: An evening with Mimi Met, March 16th , time and location TBD
6) Summer trips to China

Website

We have a website: miparentscouncil.org

The website serves as an online platform for marketing the Mandarin Immersion Programs at Starr King and Jose Ortega. Additionally, it organizes in one place a lot of information including: links and descriptions of Summer Camps offering Mandarin; video of Starr King & Jose Ortega in the Chinese New Year’s parade; descriptions and information on the committees of the Mandarin Immersions Parents Council, etc.

Summer Camps offering Mandarin

More  information can be found at…

https://miparentscouncil.org/summer-camps/

Some parents shared their experiences with summer camps that offer Mandarin. We spent time discussing two camps that are offering camps this summer: Play and Learn and CAIS (Chinese American International School).

Mandarin Play and Learn is organized by Carol Lei, who played a very significant role in launching the Mandarin Immersion Programs at Starr King and Jose Ortega. The details on the camp are available online at http://www.mandarinplaylearn.com/summer_camp_09

CAIS (Chinese American International School) is offering two, four-week sessions. CAIS is considering a special program for SFUSD Mandarin immersion students. They are seeking a grant that would help fund the special program and need to know how much demand there is for a special program. The details on the camp are available online at

http://www.cais.org/en/auxiliary/mandarin-camp/summer2009

 

Mandarin Immersion Parents Council committees

Marketing

Scott Olson is the chairperson. He created the website Miparentscouncil.org and is looking for content for the website. Scott and Chris Chang are working on getting the website translated in to Chinese.

Teacher Recruitment & Retention

Monika Liston Jo is the chairperson. She described some of the historical challenges in hiring Mandarin speaking teachers in the SFUSD. Additionally, she shared that a Chinese Learning Specialist is scheduled to start as an aide to both Starr King and Jose Ortega. The specialist will spend 3 days/week at Starr King and 2 days/week at Jose Ortega.

Middle School

This committee needs a chairperson. If you want to lead this important committee, please contact Beth Weise or Scott Olson. Several people have indicated an interest to help on this committee, but we need someone to be chairperson.

CAIS Chinese Education Conference March 13th- 15th

CAIS is hosting the Chinese Education Conference in San Francisco. This is the largest K-16 national conference dedicated to promoting Chinese education in the United States. On Saturday evening, there is a networking reception with teachers and administrators. If you are interested in attending, contact Kellyn as she may be able to get you a ticket.

Next Meeting: An evening with Mimi Met, March 16th

Dr. Myriam Met is Acting Director of the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland. Plans are not yet finalized, but the thought is that she will be giving a talk on foreign language education. This meeting will be for all of SFUSD participants and not just Mandarin Immersion. Location and time are TBD.

Summer trips to China

Kellyn Dong described two separate trips that are being organized for traveling to China this summer. One trip is for three weeks, with two weeks being spent in Wuhan. The second trip is being organized as a two-week trip for families with adopted children. If you are interested, please feel free to contact Kellyn for details.