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True, but just make that the parents' job to do. You can supplement with a foreign-language after school program, home/internet based program, and do your part to take your kids to visit foreign countries. That's our plan.
Those are all great but don't really compare to having several hours of face-to-face interaction in a foreign language every day. I used to teach ESL and you could always tell the difference between the kids in my class that only used English for those two hours a week in class and those who had significant immersion in the language. Plus I like with the bilingual schools they usually make a good point of hiring native teachers and assistants so the kids learn the cultural nuances of the language as well. If I had some unlimited disposable income I'd open up an immersion school for East Asian languages
It's too bad more of these charter schools don't focus on bilingual education and internationalization.
Surely it's only a matter of time before there is even more flexibility in charter schools and a broader range of educational models are addressed. It's really what public education SHOULD be.
However, I'm going to try like the dickens to get my youngest into that arts charter HS...she needs the small school size and strong arts program.
Ditto! I have a musician who is also doing a significant amount of composing, and really am looking forward to applying to Longleaf. She's currently in a public HS, but often feels somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the student body. Some days she comes home and seems exhausted; when I ask what's up, she generally says something about how it's just tiring for her to be around so many people, and so much hustling, bustling activity all day. Smaller school focusing on her strengths seems like just what we need. LibrarySue, I've read over the charter application, but have been unable to find any further information/websites/etc. If you see anything new, could you let me know somehow? PM or something? I'll do the same if I turn anything up!
What's interesting to me is that when they put the Spanish immersion program at Frank Porter Graham entirely, I think it's going to make the other schools less diverse. I think Scroggs lacks in the diversity department already, but it will even be less diverse when all of the Spanish immersion kids are pulled out of there. I didn't realize that the new school was in the traditional African American neighborhood. Heck, I didn't even know there was a traditional African American neighborhood in CH.
More on topic, do the parents pay any money to go to a charter school? You are allowed to go to a charter school out of district (as it seems the Saxapahaw school would be)?
Actually, they still have the Spanish dual language program at Carrboro Elementary and will keep it there, but scale it back a little bit from 3 classes in a grade to 2 classes in each grade. Carrboro will keep its traditional tracks, too, and the Spanish dual language program will change to a magnet next year, I believe. Carrboro is fairly diverse. About half the kids are white with the rest being Hispanic, black, and asian (with most of the asian kids being Burmese/Karen).
It doesn't cost money to go to a charter school, but we are required to commit to a minimal number of volunteer hours.
At Hawbridge there are kids from, I believe, 8 different school districts. Kids come from Burlington, Graham, Mebane, Hillsborough & Orange Co, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, Durham, Pittsboro and I may be leaving something out. I think there maybe a few from the Greensboro area. You're certainly welcome to apply from anywhere in NC, but I think it would be a hellish commute from Asheville or Ocracoke.
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
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Quote:
Originally Posted by poppydog
Actually, they still have the Spanish dual language program at Carrboro Elementary and will keep it there, but scale it back a little bit from 3 classes in a grade to 2 classes in each grade. Carrboro will keep its traditional tracks, too, and the Spanish dual language program will change to a magnet next year, I believe. Carrboro is fairly diverse. About half the kids are white with the rest being Hispanic, black, and asian (with most of the asian kids being Burmese/Karen).
It doesn't cost money to go to a charter school, but we are required to commit to a minimal number of volunteer hours.
At Hawbridge there are kids from, I believe, 8 different school districts. Kids come from Burlington, Graham, Mebane, Hillsborough & Orange Co, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, Durham, Pittsboro and I may be leaving something out. I think there maybe a few from the Greensboro area. You're certainly welcome to apply from anywhere in NC, but I think it would be a hellish commute from Asheville or Ocracoke.
Interesting. At Scroggs, there is only 1 immersion class per grade. And next year, there won't be any. There is little diversity at the school, with most of the Hispanic population being in the Spanish immersion classes. I wish they'd keep the program at the school. My son is 3rd on the waiting list for the program, but I'm not sure I'd want to send him to FPG next year, as that would mean I'd have 3 kids in 3 different schools. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
No, I don't think I'd want to commute to Asheville or Ocracoke on a regular basis. But I perhaps could rent a cottage on Ocracoke for the school year. Thanks for the info. I had no idea you could go to a charter school anywhere in the state.
I've read over the charter application, but have been unable to find any further information/websites/etc. If you see anything new, could you let me know somehow?
The founding members of the Longleaf school have been holding out until granting of the preliminary charter. Now that things are moving forward, the website should appear in a few days. There is a Facebook page for the school, which doesn't yield a lot of information, but it is a starting point. In order to keep in the loop, it might be a good idea to "like" that FB page.
Keep in mind that these 25 new charters are all pending final approval in March of 2013, so there may not be a whole lot of new information about them until that time.
Those are all great but don't really compare to having several hours of face-to-face interaction in a foreign language every day. I used to teach ESL and you could always tell the difference between the kids in my class that only used English for those two hours a week in class and those who had significant immersion in the language. Plus I like with the bilingual schools they usually make a good point of hiring native teachers and assistants so the kids learn the cultural nuances of the language as well. If I had some unlimited disposable income I'd open up an immersion school for East Asian languages
This is certainly true. My wife speaks fluent Spanish and as a result, so does my 3 year old. I guess in that way we're lucky that we don't expect the schools to pick up that aspect of her learning. But travel will certainly be hyped throughout her childhood. She is already a vacation freak, so we just make sure it's to enriching areas. By the time she hits middle school she'll have probably filled up a passport or two. Money saved on private school tuition will be spent on supplemental education, be it music, sports, art, language, or travel.
ANother thought on charter schools:
I just moved to NC from another state and I am not sure if the charter schools are the same type, but here are my observations:
My kids went to one because the public school system was nothing I would have put my kids in. The Charter school had a great feel to it, but since they are not funded or ran by the state, they are not required to the same expectations/standards. There was much less teacher inservicing and my kids were not being academically challenged. Myself and my former teaching partner had our kids there for the same reasons and pulled them for the same reasons.
There were so many charter schools that it had such an impact on the public schools that many closed and teachers lost jobs, and the public schools had no art/music/gym due to decreased enrollment.
As a teacher who worked in a district where the kids that came when they got kicked out of the charter schools-or the schools closed-the kids were often lagging in academic areas. We were already a very high poverty, high minority, inner city district with more behavior challenges than you could imagine, and when the Charter kids came, they were always functioning lower-which we didnt think was possible. The worst was that there were few, if any, academic records sent and the few that were reported kids were on grade level. I had one kid that actually asked why we worked all day, every day. He was used to games, computer, and free time-and was in 4th grade and couldnt read!
Hopefully charter schools here have to abide by some kind of rules/standards so the kids are learning the common core.
Hawbridge is a Honor School of Excellence, fwiw. Charter schools do have to do the EOGs and the state ABCs. I don't put a whole lot of stock in those rating scales, but we've been pleased with the level of the homework so far. It's challenging, but not overwhelming.
I do think that charters can be a drain on a school system and I do think there should be some caps so that the city/county systems don't suffer needlessly, but at the same time if the charters are able to offer something that the city/county systems aren't able to I think that is worthwhile, too.
Hawbridge draws students from many different districts so kids from many areas must be getting something at Hawbridge that they can't get in their home district.
In NC Charter Schools get state funding and they are suppose to get local funding too. However, some districts are not always forthcoming with the local funding and there are occasionally disputes on how much the local district contributes.
Our experience with our charter school is the exact opposite of your experience. Many of the kids coming from district schools into our charter school are not prepared... not on grade level. But the teachers are top notch and work hard to bring these kids up to speed. They have some of the top EOG scores in our district for middle school. (Prior to this year the school was 6-12. They just added K-5 in August. My comments are based on middle school, since it's too earlier to determine what the elementary will be like.
All the top kids we knew in 6th grade at our charter school were challenged. Even the kids that tested in the top 2% in the state. One of these kids thought for the first time in his life that he might fail because he had never been challenged that much. He didn't fail but it was a good experience for him... showed him how to work hard and that not everything is easy.
In some districts there is a reason (or MANY reasons) that parents look for charter schools instead of district schools. Unfortunately it can be easier for school districts to blame the problems on declining enrollment than to make real changes. BTW, I'm not making this assumption about your old district. I'm just a little maddened by all the anti-charter sentiment by DPS when DPS does nothing to find out why parents are pulling their kids from district schools. If you don't know what the problem is then you can't fix the problem. But I just digressed into a huge can of worms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by goodbyesnow
ANother thought on charter schools:
I just moved to NC from another state and I am not sure if the charter schools are the same type, but here are my observations:
My kids went to one because the public school system was nothing I would have put my kids in. The Charter school had a great feel to it, but since they are not funded or ran by the state, they are not required to the same expectations/standards. There was much less teacher inservicing and my kids were not being academically challenged. Myself and my former teaching partner had our kids there for the same reasons and pulled them for the same reasons.
There were so many charter schools that it had such an impact on the public schools that many closed and teachers lost jobs, and the public schools had no art/music/gym due to decreased enrollment.
As a teacher who worked in a district where the kids that came when they got kicked out of the charter schools-or the schools closed-the kids were often lagging in academic areas. We were already a very high poverty, high minority, inner city district with more behavior challenges than you could imagine, and when the Charter kids came, they were always functioning lower-which we didnt think was possible. The worst was that there were few, if any, academic records sent and the few that were reported kids were on grade level. I had one kid that actually asked why we worked all day, every day. He was used to games, computer, and free time-and was in 4th grade and couldnt read!
Hopefully charter schools here have to abide by some kind of rules/standards so the kids are learning the common core.
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