Have you considered offering second language courses for parents? We've found that most (not all, but most) non-English speaking parents are very supportive of their child receiving homework in their second language. We've also found that English-dominant parents typically get frustrated a little more often, expressing that they feel that their child shouldn't receive Spanish homework. Sometimes it's because they themselves don't know how to help their child do it, and sometimes it's because they don't feel it's important for them to do.
I just stumbled upon a program called Soleado, a Spanish as a Second Language course for adults. The website has lots of free resources and samples, and the prices themselves don't look too steep. Could be a great place to start for a school wanting to offer Spanish courses for their English speaking parents. This would help parents feel more comfortable supporting their child's second language and would hopefully build the value of the minority language not only in the minds of students but also their families.
Showing posts with label parents. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parents. Show all posts
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Advocacy & Recruitment
One of the most difficult (yet important!) parts of scaling and sustaining a great program is investing staff, students, families, district-level leadership, and the community at large. While will still have a long way to go in this area, we have started laying a good foundation. I wanted to share some documents we've created and presentations we've delivered to share our program, seek approval, and build support. You'll notice that each presentation contains a lot of similar information, but framed a little differently each time. It's critical to know what the end goals and core concerns of a particular constituency are and address those head on.
Texas Charter School Conference
TCSC Conference Presentation: Two-Way Immersion
Presentation to IDEA Chiefs (District Senior Leadership)
Chiefs Presentation
Chiefs Presentation Handouts
Principals Presentation
Principals Presentation
Principals Presentation (Brief)
Principals Presentation Handout: What is bilingual immersion?
Parent Information Sessions
Info Session for Parents of English-dominant students
Info Session for Parents of Spanish-dominant students
Session Feedback Form English (not sure where the Spanish translation is?)
Parent FAQ English
Parent FAQ Spanish
Two-Way Immersion Basics English
Two-Way Immersion Basics Spanish
Texas Charter School Conference
TCSC Conference Presentation: Two-Way Immersion
Presentation to IDEA Chiefs (District Senior Leadership)
Chiefs Presentation
Chiefs Presentation Handouts
Principals Presentation
Principals Presentation
Principals Presentation (Brief)
Principals Presentation Handout: What is bilingual immersion?
Parent Information Sessions
Info Session for Parents of English-dominant students
Info Session for Parents of Spanish-dominant students
Session Feedback Form English (not sure where the Spanish translation is?)
Parent FAQ English
Parent FAQ Spanish
Two-Way Immersion Basics English
Two-Way Immersion Basics Spanish
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Spring Jamaica 2010
We've worked hard this year to celebrate family, language, and culture in even richer ways. Our 1st Annual Spring Jamaica (held at the Veterans Pavilion on S. Inspiration Rd) was a huge success! Children and families celebrated spring, family, and culture through food, games, singing, and dancing. Spearheaded by our amazing Assistant Principal, Mrs. Lozano, everything came together beautifully and it ended up being a highly successful fundraiser. Enjoy some pics from the big event.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Jose-Luis Orozco Concert
We celebrated Dia de los Niños and 5 de mayo with a fantastic concert by bilingual children's songwriter and performer Jose-Luis Orozco. He performed at Quest (paid for by money raised by Mission's parent association) so Mission and Quest K - 2 students enjoyed a true musical treat. Here are some pics from the event--we hope to make it an annual tradition!
Here's a video clip from an appearance Jose-Luis Orozco made on Telemundo:
Telemundo - De Mañanita from José-Luis Orozco on Vimeo.
Here's a video clip from an appearance Jose-Luis Orozco made on Telemundo:
Telemundo - De Mañanita from José-Luis Orozco on Vimeo.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Gearing up for change
An important part of a dual language model is ensuring a complete and equitable balance of both languages...at both the academic and social levels. The way we've built our schedule we do have an equal balance of exposure to academic language, however, we had to figure out how to achieve a similarly equal balance in students' exposure to social language. Because our teachers ONLY speak their language of instruction--even during non-instructional times--we had to make sure that children (for example) who were assigned to their English teacher's homeroom (where they begin/end day, eat meals, go to recess, etc) also received the opportunity to spend equal non-instructional time doing the same things with their Spanish teacher. We decided to achieve this by switching each class' homeroom teacher at mid-year.
I was starting to get very nervous about this transition, primarily because I was anticipating a lot of misunderstanding from parents and was afraid that they'd see it as a much BIGGER change than it really is. It really just means that the child eats his meals and leaves his backpack in teacher B's classroom, instead of teacher A's. I worried that parents wouldn't understand that the "new homeroom teacher" will simply be the teacher their child already spends half a day with and that therefore it is truly a minimal change. I shared these concerns with kinder and first grade teams and solicited their feedback. At first most teachers agreed that it might not be worth the potential parent backlash. One teacher, however, began to push our thinking that if we don't make the change, that we'll never really help our parents understand that their child truly does have 2 teachers instead of just 1. She pointed out that if we message the change powerfully enough and for long enough, we would likely educate them well enough to help them understand our unique two-way model. That began to change our perspective on the issue. Another teacher then shared that the transition would likely be a fairly easy one for children given the fact that they've already been teaching them for half a day every day for several months; we're not talking about breakfast and lunch procedures with an entirely brand new group of kids. During the kinder meeting one teacher pointed out that she really saw students speaking lots of English during meals in her classroom and knew lots of Spanish was being spoken by her team teacher's homeroom students during those same times. She said she felt it was a disservice to the students to NOT make the mid-year shift. Kinder has been previewing and preparing for this shift with the children for some time to ensure that they transition easily. A great point of feedback was that if, school-wide, we'd done a much better job calling every class by only their college mascot (instead of sometimes still referring to them as "Ms. Lopez's class" or "Mrs. Herrera's homeroom") it would make for a smoother transition because it would focus their class identity more on their mascot than on one teacher vs the other. Teachers reported that kids had lots of questions like: "Where will we keep our things?" "Will you still be a Hurricane, Ms. Lopez?" etc. We determined that in order for the transition to go smoothly, we'd need to do the following to prepare parents:
1) Remind them of the change every week in the Family Connection newsletter, working hard to "minimize" the transition (as one teacher put it, "they'll be eating their meals with the other teacher....that's about it")
2) Send home a parent letter specifically about this, maybe with a list of FAQ's.
3) Teachers will address the change briefly during report card conferences on Feb 3 & 4
4) My assistant principal and I will set up a Dual Language Q&A room during report card nights so any parent can drop in and talk with us about questions and concerns.
We would then probably make the change the week following. We'll see how this goes!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
I was starting to get very nervous about this transition, primarily because I was anticipating a lot of misunderstanding from parents and was afraid that they'd see it as a much BIGGER change than it really is. It really just means that the child eats his meals and leaves his backpack in teacher B's classroom, instead of teacher A's. I worried that parents wouldn't understand that the "new homeroom teacher" will simply be the teacher their child already spends half a day with and that therefore it is truly a minimal change. I shared these concerns with kinder and first grade teams and solicited their feedback. At first most teachers agreed that it might not be worth the potential parent backlash. One teacher, however, began to push our thinking that if we don't make the change, that we'll never really help our parents understand that their child truly does have 2 teachers instead of just 1. She pointed out that if we message the change powerfully enough and for long enough, we would likely educate them well enough to help them understand our unique two-way model. That began to change our perspective on the issue. Another teacher then shared that the transition would likely be a fairly easy one for children given the fact that they've already been teaching them for half a day every day for several months; we're not talking about breakfast and lunch procedures with an entirely brand new group of kids. During the kinder meeting one teacher pointed out that she really saw students speaking lots of English during meals in her classroom and knew lots of Spanish was being spoken by her team teacher's homeroom students during those same times. She said she felt it was a disservice to the students to NOT make the mid-year shift. Kinder has been previewing and preparing for this shift with the children for some time to ensure that they transition easily. A great point of feedback was that if, school-wide, we'd done a much better job calling every class by only their college mascot (instead of sometimes still referring to them as "Ms. Lopez's class" or "Mrs. Herrera's homeroom") it would make for a smoother transition because it would focus their class identity more on their mascot than on one teacher vs the other. Teachers reported that kids had lots of questions like: "Where will we keep our things?" "Will you still be a Hurricane, Ms. Lopez?" etc. We determined that in order for the transition to go smoothly, we'd need to do the following to prepare parents:
1) Remind them of the change every week in the Family Connection newsletter, working hard to "minimize" the transition (as one teacher put it, "they'll be eating their meals with the other teacher....that's about it")
2) Send home a parent letter specifically about this, maybe with a list of FAQ's.
3) Teachers will address the change briefly during report card conferences on Feb 3 & 4
4) My assistant principal and I will set up a Dual Language Q&A room during report card nights so any parent can drop in and talk with us about questions and concerns.
We would then probably make the change the week following. We'll see how this goes!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Quarterly Info Sessions
We decided to hold quarterly dual language information sessions for primary parents. This time our presentation for English-dominant parents was even more different than that for Spanish-dominant parents. We focused much more on questions and concerns that we've heard from both sets of parents. They are related but definitely unique.
Spanish-dominant parents need to understand the critical role their child's home language plays in the development of a 2nd language and the importance of learning to read that home language as the literacy skills will easily transfer once their oral vocabulary in English is large enough to read and comprehend in that second language. Several Spanish-speaking parents have said things such as: "But we speak 100% Spanish at home. My child doesn't need to get Spanish here at school. We moved to this country so that they could speak English." This is when I explain the research that shows how children that receive elementary school instruction that includes significant and sustained instructional time in the home language actually end up with higher achievement in English down the road. I also explain the third generation phenemenon--that because Spanish is a minority language here in the U.S and because it wields much less social power (unfortunately), we have to work even harder to maintain it in. To parents that say "but my child will never lose their Spanish--it's all we speak at home," I quickly respond that it's almost a guarantee, however, that their child's children will most likely speak very little Spanish if the value of Spanish is not explicitly taught to every generation. Then they'll be left struggling to communicate with their own grandchildren. I share how we have many third generation children in our very own classrooms--whose parents have personally shared with me that they cannot talk much with their own grandparents because of the language barrier. I've now had several parents excitedly share how our dual language program is giving their child the language skills to communicate much more meaningfully with their Spanish-speaking grandparents. Language is not just about language. It's about culture and family and heritage.
English-dominant have fears too. Some of them don't see the need for a second language. However, most of the parents I've spoken with here do understand the value of speaking both languages but they're a bit afraid that spending several hours a day in Spanish will put their children behind academically. To respond to this concern I discuss research that highlights the many benefits a second language offers cognitively, emotionally, and socially. I also reassure them that research on two-way immersion shows that English speakers in the program, on average, do just as well (and often better) than English speakers not in a bilingual program. In other words, it's win-win!
We advertised last week's meeting (Tuesday October 27th @ 6 PM) for several weeks in the Family Connection, our weekly parent newsletter. We had a total of about 10 parents, not a strong showing, but a good small "sample" size for trying out our new presentations. Both the English session (I facilitated) and the Spanish session (Luzdivina, my assistant principal, facilitated) went well according to the feedback forms. We'll definitely improve our advertising for next time!
Spanish-dominant parents need to understand the critical role their child's home language plays in the development of a 2nd language and the importance of learning to read that home language as the literacy skills will easily transfer once their oral vocabulary in English is large enough to read and comprehend in that second language. Several Spanish-speaking parents have said things such as: "But we speak 100% Spanish at home. My child doesn't need to get Spanish here at school. We moved to this country so that they could speak English." This is when I explain the research that shows how children that receive elementary school instruction that includes significant and sustained instructional time in the home language actually end up with higher achievement in English down the road. I also explain the third generation phenemenon--that because Spanish is a minority language here in the U.S and because it wields much less social power (unfortunately), we have to work even harder to maintain it in. To parents that say "but my child will never lose their Spanish--it's all we speak at home," I quickly respond that it's almost a guarantee, however, that their child's children will most likely speak very little Spanish if the value of Spanish is not explicitly taught to every generation. Then they'll be left struggling to communicate with their own grandchildren. I share how we have many third generation children in our very own classrooms--whose parents have personally shared with me that they cannot talk much with their own grandparents because of the language barrier. I've now had several parents excitedly share how our dual language program is giving their child the language skills to communicate much more meaningfully with their Spanish-speaking grandparents. Language is not just about language. It's about culture and family and heritage.
English-dominant have fears too. Some of them don't see the need for a second language. However, most of the parents I've spoken with here do understand the value of speaking both languages but they're a bit afraid that spending several hours a day in Spanish will put their children behind academically. To respond to this concern I discuss research that highlights the many benefits a second language offers cognitively, emotionally, and socially. I also reassure them that research on two-way immersion shows that English speakers in the program, on average, do just as well (and often better) than English speakers not in a bilingual program. In other words, it's win-win!
We advertised last week's meeting (Tuesday October 27th @ 6 PM) for several weeks in the Family Connection, our weekly parent newsletter. We had a total of about 10 parents, not a strong showing, but a good small "sample" size for trying out our new presentations. Both the English session (I facilitated) and the Spanish session (Luzdivina, my assistant principal, facilitated) went well according to the feedback forms. We'll definitely improve our advertising for next time!
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Who am I? Where am I?
Whoa. I knew this whole thing was gonna rock my world but I didn't quite know just how much. Yes, I come in with experience as a former dual language teacher. Yes, I've read everything I can get my grubby li'l hands on about the research and practice of two-way immersion. Yes, I'm insanely passionate about the dual language approach. Yes, I've visited multiple dual language schools and spoken with dozens of administrators leading dual language schools across the country. Yes, my school is filled with teachers who, for the most part, are 100% bought in to our program. Yes, I've hired a consultant to help guide me through the instructional planning part of putting dual language on the ground. So why do I feel only slightly conscious--like I was hit on the head with a brick on, say, August 24th (AKA the day the children arrived) and am only now (barely) beginning to come to my senses?
The first few weeks and all the additional transitions that are a regular part of a day when team teaching (moving back and forth between the English and Spanish teachers' classrooms) had me wondering if this was the right way to make the model work. However, this past week or two the children seem so much more settled and comfortable with the transitions. I'm also beginning to see the power of dividing language by teacher--there are children who would otherwise refuse to speak in Spanish that are busting out full sentences simply because they know their Spanish teacher will only ever speak just Spanish to them. Consciously or subconsciously, their brain knows that "when I'm in Sra. Herrera's classroom, I've just gotta speak Spanish." We see the same in our English classrooms too. The model is beginning to bear fruit.
We are now also starting to encounter anxious parents who want immediate results in their child's second language process. One already withdrew and another is threatening to withdraw; I have a meeting with this parent on Monday to (hopefully!) convince her to keep her daughter in the program. This family is Spanish-dominant and the mother is concerned that, 6 weeks into kindergarten, she is not yet reading in English. She says that the family moved to the U.S.A. so that the children could get a good English education so she's concerned that by her daughter receiving 50% of instruction in Spanish her growth in English will be slowed. I'm going to have to break it to her that we wouldn't typically expect her child to be reading at all this early in kinder--even in her dominant language! I also need to help her understand the (looooong) language learning process and the role childrens' native language plays in the learning of the 2nd language. Finally, I'll whip out the trusty Thomas and Collier graph and show, in no uncertain terms, that the long term results of bilingual instruction are staggering. It helps English achievement tremendously! I'm looking forward to this parent meeting.
These anxieties are normal right now--parents don't realize how long this process takes! That's why we ask them to commit to our program for 5 - 7 years. It really does take that long for young children (still developing ther first language) to acquire a second language at high academic levels. I've also decided that I need to hold a (minimum) quarterly information meeting for parents who haven't yet attended one or parents who still have questions and concerns. We held several last year and include an overview of dual language in our recruitment information session, but--other than that--haven't held any info sessions this year. Definitely an oversight I won't repeat next year.
Teachers are really starting to get into the groove of things. Tomorrow will mark the end of each grade level's first unit of inquiry. They're starting to better see how their units can truly become transdisciplinary and how they can weave their unit concepts and topics throughout every content area for a much richer and contextualized dual language experience. I also had Melissa and Ilse, an English/Spanish team in first grade, share excitedly that they had worked together for Mel to preview dictionaries and their format in English in preparation for a science activity in which students created huge dictionary posters with vocab from their current Fabrics unit. They're beginning to find opportunities to apply preview-view-review strategies across the languages. Bravo!
Dr. Mercuri had her first observation/debrief consulting day with us on Thurs 9/24. We saw every teacher in action and met with grade levels for team meetings. She provided some feedback and also listened to their questions and concerns. Some of my big takeaways from that day--
**all roads must lead to meaning--in a dual language school we can never teach anything that doesn't incorporate comprehension and meaning.
**we need to increase and improve oral language experiences. I learned that oral language experiences should encourage students not just to listen to their second language but to produce it. Therefore we need a lot more singing, chants, etc. We also need to consistently employ the daily news oral language structure and use it to reinforce elements of language such as vocabulary, syntax, conventions, etc.
**we must be more purposeful in our sheltered instruction. We must alway have second language learners in might and plan ahead to provide them with the supportive scaffolding they'll need to also be successful in mastering lesson objectives, even though they aren't delivered in their dominant language.
**we haven't really started capitalizing on the preview-view-review strategy. Dr. Mercuri suggested we structure more formal planning at three different levels to better facilitate this: (1) grade level planning (ex: entire 1st grade team) (2) language partner planning (ex: all Spanish teachers in 1st grade) and (3) team teacher planning (English/Spanish teacher pair sharing the same 2 classes of children. As a result I set up a schedule to provide more structure to the use of each grade level's common conference time each day--
Mon: Grade Level Planning
Tues: Personal Planning (lesson plans due each Tues evening for the following week)
Wed: Language Partner Planning
Thurs: Team Teacher Planning
Fri: "Problem of Practice" (instructional development) with principal
We began following this this past week--I need to monitor this more closely and provide additional support around how to do use these different types of planning more effectively (specifically in helping teachers understand how each serves a somewhat different purpose and looks at instructional planning from a slightly different perspective). Overall, however, I'm pleased with how this is strengthening instruction. I also rearranged enrichment & PE schedules so that teachers have some additional personal planning time at different points in the week. I'm hoping that will help them (everyone was feeling a bit frantic and as if there was no time to do much planning/prep on campus. They weren't incredibly far from the truth! :) I do think we found a good plan, however. I'm crossing my fingers that teacher morale goes up. It's been pretty low lately, particularly with my new (brand new as well as just new to IDEA) teachers. I think the reality of what they signed up for is really hitting them. Some are embracing it and working through it, while a couple are having a much rougher time.
The first few weeks and all the additional transitions that are a regular part of a day when team teaching (moving back and forth between the English and Spanish teachers' classrooms) had me wondering if this was the right way to make the model work. However, this past week or two the children seem so much more settled and comfortable with the transitions. I'm also beginning to see the power of dividing language by teacher--there are children who would otherwise refuse to speak in Spanish that are busting out full sentences simply because they know their Spanish teacher will only ever speak just Spanish to them. Consciously or subconsciously, their brain knows that "when I'm in Sra. Herrera's classroom, I've just gotta speak Spanish." We see the same in our English classrooms too. The model is beginning to bear fruit.
We are now also starting to encounter anxious parents who want immediate results in their child's second language process. One already withdrew and another is threatening to withdraw; I have a meeting with this parent on Monday to (hopefully!) convince her to keep her daughter in the program. This family is Spanish-dominant and the mother is concerned that, 6 weeks into kindergarten, she is not yet reading in English. She says that the family moved to the U.S.A. so that the children could get a good English education so she's concerned that by her daughter receiving 50% of instruction in Spanish her growth in English will be slowed. I'm going to have to break it to her that we wouldn't typically expect her child to be reading at all this early in kinder--even in her dominant language! I also need to help her understand the (looooong) language learning process and the role childrens' native language plays in the learning of the 2nd language. Finally, I'll whip out the trusty Thomas and Collier graph and show, in no uncertain terms, that the long term results of bilingual instruction are staggering. It helps English achievement tremendously! I'm looking forward to this parent meeting.
These anxieties are normal right now--parents don't realize how long this process takes! That's why we ask them to commit to our program for 5 - 7 years. It really does take that long for young children (still developing ther first language) to acquire a second language at high academic levels. I've also decided that I need to hold a (minimum) quarterly information meeting for parents who haven't yet attended one or parents who still have questions and concerns. We held several last year and include an overview of dual language in our recruitment information session, but--other than that--haven't held any info sessions this year. Definitely an oversight I won't repeat next year.
Teachers are really starting to get into the groove of things. Tomorrow will mark the end of each grade level's first unit of inquiry. They're starting to better see how their units can truly become transdisciplinary and how they can weave their unit concepts and topics throughout every content area for a much richer and contextualized dual language experience. I also had Melissa and Ilse, an English/Spanish team in first grade, share excitedly that they had worked together for Mel to preview dictionaries and their format in English in preparation for a science activity in which students created huge dictionary posters with vocab from their current Fabrics unit. They're beginning to find opportunities to apply preview-view-review strategies across the languages. Bravo!
Dr. Mercuri had her first observation/debrief consulting day with us on Thurs 9/24. We saw every teacher in action and met with grade levels for team meetings. She provided some feedback and also listened to their questions and concerns. Some of my big takeaways from that day--
**all roads must lead to meaning--in a dual language school we can never teach anything that doesn't incorporate comprehension and meaning.
**we need to increase and improve oral language experiences. I learned that oral language experiences should encourage students not just to listen to their second language but to produce it. Therefore we need a lot more singing, chants, etc. We also need to consistently employ the daily news oral language structure and use it to reinforce elements of language such as vocabulary, syntax, conventions, etc.
**we must be more purposeful in our sheltered instruction. We must alway have second language learners in might and plan ahead to provide them with the supportive scaffolding they'll need to also be successful in mastering lesson objectives, even though they aren't delivered in their dominant language.
**we haven't really started capitalizing on the preview-view-review strategy. Dr. Mercuri suggested we structure more formal planning at three different levels to better facilitate this: (1) grade level planning (ex: entire 1st grade team) (2) language partner planning (ex: all Spanish teachers in 1st grade) and (3) team teacher planning (English/Spanish teacher pair sharing the same 2 classes of children. As a result I set up a schedule to provide more structure to the use of each grade level's common conference time each day--
Mon: Grade Level Planning
Tues: Personal Planning (lesson plans due each Tues evening for the following week)
Wed: Language Partner Planning
Thurs: Team Teacher Planning
Fri: "Problem of Practice" (instructional development) with principal
We began following this this past week--I need to monitor this more closely and provide additional support around how to do use these different types of planning more effectively (specifically in helping teachers understand how each serves a somewhat different purpose and looks at instructional planning from a slightly different perspective). Overall, however, I'm pleased with how this is strengthening instruction. I also rearranged enrichment & PE schedules so that teachers have some additional personal planning time at different points in the week. I'm hoping that will help them (everyone was feeling a bit frantic and as if there was no time to do much planning/prep on campus. They weren't incredibly far from the truth! :) I do think we found a good plan, however. I'm crossing my fingers that teacher morale goes up. It's been pretty low lately, particularly with my new (brand new as well as just new to IDEA) teachers. I think the reality of what they signed up for is really hitting them. Some are embracing it and working through it, while a couple are having a much rougher time.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Week of 8/24/09
I'm also posting weekly reflections on a google group I set up, so sometimes I'll just cut and paste from that:
From my perspective, it seemed like the half day schedule (7:30 AM - 12 PM) made getting to know students really difficult in a team-teaching setup. Might want to consider eliminating having half-days for the first week next year? Next year, we need to be more strategic in getting ready to get to know a lot of children & fast....and to have them feeling completely at home in both of their classrooms. I knew this would be difficult but didn't proactively plan ahead well enough. Teachers are reporting that dividing language by teacher and never having to change languages is much easier than last year's language of the day approach. So glad we took the time to have our 3-day TWI institute as it really provided critical background knowledge for conversations this week.
Teachers are reporting lots of parent confusion with TWI. I need to schedule additional info sessions ASAP (interesting since every parent that registered has attending our introductory intro session--lots of time given to dual language. Must not have been clear messaging in the info sessions).
From my perspective, it seemed like the half day schedule (7:30 AM - 12 PM) made getting to know students really difficult in a team-teaching setup. Might want to consider eliminating having half-days for the first week next year? Next year, we need to be more strategic in getting ready to get to know a lot of children & fast....and to have them feeling completely at home in both of their classrooms. I knew this would be difficult but didn't proactively plan ahead well enough. Teachers are reporting that dividing language by teacher and never having to change languages is much easier than last year's language of the day approach. So glad we took the time to have our 3-day TWI institute as it really provided critical background knowledge for conversations this week.
Teachers are reporting lots of parent confusion with TWI. I need to schedule additional info sessions ASAP (interesting since every parent that registered has attending our introductory intro session--lots of time given to dual language. Must not have been clear messaging in the info sessions).
Thursday, July 23, 2009
New Student Registration: Day 1
Our first day of new student registration went incredibly well! We included a dual language station where every parent was again reminded of the key elements of our program, they signed an authorization form acknowledging that they will support their child in the program for 5 - 7 years, and handed out more copies of the parent information packet. Not a single negative comment from any of the (approximately) 125 elementary school families that attended today. The words of one mother of an English-dominant student: "I cannot WAIT for the Spanish program to begin!" Ahhh...music to my ears. I'm beginning to trust that all the work we've put into the information sessions for both new and returning students might just be paying off. I know all too well to think that concerns won't arise once classes start, but I'm hoping our efforts to educate and invest parents over the past several months will pay high dividends and minimize the concerns down the road. Day 2 ahead!
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