Mandarin Immersion Parents Council

Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education

recent posts

about

  • Oregon’s Palisades World Language School opens new public Mandarin Chinese program

    Lake Oswego Review, By Mia Ryder-Marks, Jan. 7, 2023

    Starting in September 2023, students at Palisades World Language School will be walking the hallways and chatting with their friends in English, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.

    This fall, Palisades will add a Mandarin Chinese language program to its roster, which already includes Spanish, for kindergarten and first grade students. Christy Appleberry and Vicki Yang are teachers and immersion program facilitation partners who are developing and constructing the new language program. They said the textbooks for students just arrived and they are excited for students to finally crack them open come next fall.

    “I’m very excited that our school is going to be a super diverse community. We can’t wait to hear kids in the hallways speak not only Spanish (but) Chinese, English and other different languages. It will be a very unique place for kids to grow up surrounded by so many languages,” Appleberry said.

    The new language program will mirror its Spanish counterpart. Students will take their core classes — math, English, history and science — with Mandarin Chinese incorporated. Students will also take Chinese language literacy courses.

    Please read more here.

  • Massachusetts sister write bilingual kids mystery

    New England Public Media

    On a late afternoon in Hadley, Massachusetts, a small crowd of kids and their grown-ups are in the children’s room at the public library, listening to sixth grader Emma Barrett and Belley Barrett, in second grade, read from their new, bilingual book, Sister Detectives.

    The two sisters illustrated and wrote the Chinese and English story. The girls, dressed as matching sleuths in houndstooth capes and caps, began to read. Emma took the lead on the English, Belley read in Chinese.

    “For hobbies, Belley and I are little detectives who solve cases when we are not busy doing schoolwork,” Emma read in English.

    “我們的愛好是當個小偵探， 在課余閑暇解決棘手案件,” Belley read in Chinese.

    The tale is about two sisters (who the authors named after themselves) hired to find the thief who stole all the strawberry ice cream bars from the Neverending Ice Cream Store.

    Please read more here.

  • ‘They can come out of school with this gift’: Utah educator makes waves in language immersion

    From: The Spectrum, St. George Utah

    LAURA GERSONY   USA TODAY NETWORK17 hours ago

    Jill Landes-Lee is one of the nominees for USA TODAY’s Women of the Year program, a recognition of women who have made a significant impact in their communities and across the country. The program launched in 2022 as a continuation of Women of the Century, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Meet this year’s honorees at womenoftheyear.usatoday.com.

    It is becoming more common for U.S. public schools to offer language immersion classes in which the regular school curriculum and literacy are taught in English and a second language.

    For example, students at Utah’s Aspen Elementary School can apply to spend half of each school day in English, and the other half in Chinese. Nearby Cherry Hill Elementary offers the same programming in English and Spanish.

    Please read more here.

  • Want to fill up your school district? Add immersion!

    Like many school districts, St. Paul Public Schools in Minnesota has struggled with enrollment decline. But the addition of language immersion programs, which now include Spanish, Mandarin, French, German and Hmong, For the first time since 2018, St. Paul Public Schools’ enrollment decline was barely noticeable. The district schools that have added the most students since 2022 were two Hmong programs, a new East African Elementary Magnet School and a Spanish immersion school.

    St. Paul school district halts enrollment slide. The secret: listening to immigrant communities.

    Schools offering Hmong, Spanish and East African language or cultural programs saw the district’s biggest gains.

    by Becky Z. Dernbach, Sahan Journal

    The second-graders in Mee Kong’s classroom had not finished their breakfast yet, but they were ready to get to work. 

    Their assignment: to create a book about their mom’s side of the family. One child sketched her siblings on virtual pages on her tablet. Another pulled up an old photo of her family celebrating Christmas.

    “How many of your brothers and sisters go to school here?” the principal, May Lee Xiong, asked her.

    Please read more here.

  • A conference on immersion education

    This might be of interest to teachers and program administrators.

    The 9th International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education will be held October 2-5, 2024 in Salt Lake City, Utah at the Grand America Hotel. Inclusive of all languages, program models, and educational levels, the 2024 conference brings together researchers and practitioners from the U.S. and around the world to share knowledge, expertise and best practices in dual language and immersion education. The 2024 theme is Multilingualism for All: Transforming Education One Community at a Time.

    More information here.

  • Newly updated Mandarin immersion school list

    I’ve posted the full list as of February 1, 2024. We’re up to 394 schools in the United States that I’m aware of. If there are schools that aren’t on the list, please contact me.

    Click here to access the list page.

    Updates February 2024

    ADDITIONS

    Pacific Academy

    Private

    Costa Mesa, CA K – 8

    Launched 2023 – 2023

    Global Citizens Public Charter School

    Washington DC

    Charter, K – 5

    Opened 2022-2023

    Also offers Spanish immersion

    Baton Rouge Foreign Language Academic Immersion Magnet (FLAIM)

    East Baton Rouge Parish School System

    Baton Rouge, LA

    K – 5

    Opened 2015-2016

    Barrington High School

    Barrington School District

    Public, 9 – 12

    Barrington, IL

    Began 2019-2020

    Triad International Studies Academy

    North Carolina

    Greensboro, NC

    K – 8

    To open 2025-2026

    https://greensboro.com/news/local/education/triad-international-studies-academy-chinese-spanish-school-high-point/article_d11c94c2-9dc3-11ee-b10c-3f0e96d2c866.html

    MOVES

    Portland, Oregon

    Portland Public Schools – Lots of movement

    The Mandarin immersion program that was once at Harrison Park Elementary has moved to Clark Elementary.

    Harrison Park is now a middle school and hosts the Mandarin immersion students who have completed the programs at Clark Elementary and Woodstock Elementary.

    Hosford Middle School, which formerly took MI students from Woodstock no longer does as those students now go to Harrison Park Middle School.

    Jefferson High School added classes for students coming from Portland’s Mandarin immersion schools.

    CLOSURES

    Camelot Academy of Arts, Science and Technology

    Esplanade, CA

    They don’t appear to offer Mandarin immersion any more so I’ve removed them from the list.

    Dutchtown Elementary School

    Henry County Schools

    Hampton, GA

    Opened in 2013-2014, can’t tell when they ended it.

    Box Canyon Utah

    Blue Valley Utah

                Valley Park Elementary School

                Programs ”sunsetting” due to low enrollment.

    Kensington Elementary

    Union County Public Schools

    Waxhaw, NC

                Program phasing out in 2023-2023, Spanish phasing in.

  • Utah won’t cut funding to its renowned immersion programs

    SALT LAKE CITY — A legislative committee is recommending no change to how Utah’s dual language immersion program is funded.

    During a meeting Thursday of the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee, the chairs announced they recommend retaining the roughly $7.3 million funding for the program that allows students to learn languages such as Chinese, French, German, Spanish and Russian.

    This comes after former state Sen. Howard Stephenson, the original sponsor of the dual language immersion program, had warned lawmakers were considering defunding it by reallocating the money in a way that would “decimate the DLI program as we know it.”

    Please read more here.

    But some Utah Mandarin immersion programs are struggling

    BRIGHAM CITY — The Box Elder School District is going to remove the Chinese immersion program for new students, citing “declining interest.” Still, some parents are urging them to reconsider.

    The Chinese dual immersion program at Golden Spike Elementary School is ideally supposed to have 60 new kids each year to make up two classes. Instead, its enrollment is about half of that amount. Despite the low enrollment, parents who have seen the program work say it’s too valuable to drop.

    Please read more here.

    And here Blue Valley is also cutting its program.