Mandarin Immersion Parents Council

Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education

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  • San Jose, CA may close its Mandarin immersion program

    Cherrywood Elementary School in San Jose, California is recommended for closure in 2025-2026 due to declining enrollment. The school’s Mandarin Dual Immersion Program is a concern for the school district and community. 

    It’s not entirely clear to me this is happening, not seeing any decisions but the program is accepting applications for the 2025-2026 school year. If anyone has updated information, please message me. It’s possible they will relocate the Mandarin program but I can’t find information about it.

    Cash-strapped San Jose school district narrows down closures

    by Lorraine Gabbert, November 12, 2024

    Hundreds of North San Jose parents, students and teachers are joining forces to fight school closures in their community.

    The Berryessa Union School District board met Tuesday night to discuss the potential closure of  three schools due to declining enrollment and decreased federal and state dollars. The schools on the chopping block have not been finalized, but could be a combination of two elementary schools and one middle school, or two elementary schools and another merged with a middle school, or closing three elementary schools. None of the suggestions appeased any of the families whose children will be affected by the final decision being made on Dec. 18. 

    Please read more here and here.

    More about the program here.

    A petition about the issue is here.

  • After a decade of trying, Massachusetts Mandarin immersion school can expand

    The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted this week to allow Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter, in Hadley Massachusetts, to expand by 100 more students. The hugely popular school has been trying to expand since 2015 to accommodate all the families who want to attend.

    Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter set for expansion after close vote on Tuesday

    Daily Hampshire Gazette

    By SCOTT MERZBACH, Feb. 25, 2025

    HADLEY — Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School’s enrollment can increase by 100 students after the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education Tuesday narrowly supported acting Commissioner Russell D. Johnston’s recommendation allowing the K-12 school to have up to 684 students.

    In approving the enrollment increase by a 6-4 vote, the board also set several conditions as part of the school’s charter amendment, including requiring that the PVCICS board of trustees engage in a comprehensive self-evaluation of its capacity and expertise; that the board of trustees engage in training, conducted by an external consultant, on the roles and responsibilities of a board of trustees of a charter school; and that the board of trustees submit a plan to implement a cost-effective regional transportation plan eligible for state reimbursement.

    Please read more here.

  • How Schools Can Expand Dual-Language Immersion Programs

    Education Week

    By Ileana Najarro — February 12, 2025  

    Former U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona championed multilingualism for all students, as well as improved programming for the nation’s English learners.

    One of the last major projects he oversaw in his tenure at the U.S. Department of Education was the office of English language acquisition’s dual-language immersion project: a publication of four playbooks with detailed guidance for educators on how to establish and sustain dual-language immersion programs.

    What these programs look like can vary across the country but typically, a dual-language immersion program covers kindergarten through 5th grade and students learn academic content while also receiving language instruction in both English and a partner language—often Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, or French.

    Please read more here.

  • Building bridges with immersion in Minnesota

    Beyond the 3 Rs: Building international bridges

    From: The Pioneer Press February 8, 2025

    Schools place priority on making global connections

    Editor’s Note: This continues a series about the reinvention of local public schools in the 21st century. The stories focus on how technology, globalism and government intervention have changed School District 112 and Minnetonka School District.

    By Forrest Adams

    A team of student teachers from Chile is teaching in Minnetonka schools this spring.

    A total of 18 students from abroad are spending their school year in the Minnetonka School District, and last week, a group of students from the Netherlands and China spent time in Minnetonka on a short-term exchange.

    In December, students and staff from District 112 traveled to China to forge ties with educators and students there.

    Living in an age of global markets and social networking, the increased interaction between educators and students in countries separated by thousands of miles is increasing. Technology, now widely available, coupled with the ease of travel, has enhanced what used to be an occasional pen-pal letter with a “friend” overseas.

    Please read more here.

  • Atlanta International School adds boarding option

    Atlanta International School (AIS)’s upcoming recruiting trip to China is just one of the institution’s efforts to extend its multilingual, culturally diverse academic experience to families at home and abroad.  

    AIS’s student body is a blend of about half expatriate families and half locals living in the Atlanta area. But in 2025, thanks to the school’s new boarding program on its Sandy Springs campus, students from around the world will be coming to live and study. 

    Please read more here.

  • Happy Year of the Snake`

    January 29 is the lunar New Year and a happy Year of the Snake or Year of the Serpent to all those born under that sign.

    Although we might have bad associations with snakes, in the Chinese zodiac they are linked to wisdom, charm, elegance, and transformation and people born in the Year of the Snake are thought to be intuitive, strategic, and intelligent.

    If you’d like a very deep dive into that zodiac info about this year (It’s the near of the wood snake) you can read all about it here.

    But mostly the lunar New Year (also known as the spring festival) is a time to eat good food and visit with friends and family. Here’s wishing everyone a happy, healthy and good new year.

    And if you want to celebrate like they do in China, you’ll not only have a great meal with family but you’ll watch the totally over-the-top annual Spring Festival Gala, which is kind of a mix between our New Year’s shows and the old variety shows many of us grew up with, with a sprinkling of the old Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon.

    Though you might have to search around a bit online or on your cable/subscriptions to find it.

  • First full class of Minnesota’s Jie Ming Mandarin Immersion Academy graduates high school

    From: The Pioneer Press June 2024

    Brouke Brookins couldn’t understand a word his teacher was saying on his first day of kindergarten at Jie Ming Mandarin Immersion Academy.

    “We were sitting on the carpet in a circle, all of us, and the teacher walked over and just started speaking another language,” he said. “I remember looking left and right, and I was like, ‘I don’t know what she’s saying. I don’t know if she’s greeting us or what.’”

    The same thing happened the next day, and the day after that.

    It took several months before Brookins, a member of the first class to complete St. Paul Public Schools’ full K-12 Mandarin-immersion program, finally began to comprehend some words in Mandarin — at school and in his dreams.

    “I started dreaming in Chinese, and that’s when I realized, ‘Oh, I know this,’ and the next day at school, all of us were, like, understanding the teacher,” he said. “It started like that. First, we understood what she was saying, but we could not quite speak it yet, and then we transitioned from just understanding what she was saying to us to actually being able to speak it and communicate with each other outside of just talking to the teacher in the class setting.”

    Please read more here.