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A study of the Menlo Park City School District’s Spanish immersion program and a look at world languages for all district students will be discussed at a governing board meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 9. The reports are scheduled to start at 7:20 p.m. in the district office building’s TERC room at 181 Encinal Ave. in Atherton.
The board is also scheduled to vote on guiding principles for the district.
The district promised to hold discussions of the Spanish immersion program and the district’s overall world language program in April, when it discussed but did not vote on a request to add a Mandarin immersion program to the Spanish immersion program the district already has.
In an immersion program, students receive most of their instruction in the target language, with more English-language instruction added as students progress through grade levels.
In April, Superintendent Maurice Ghysels said the district needed to “step back and take a really good look at what we want to do with foreign languages,” including a close look at the existing Spanish-immersion programs, before launching a new one.
When the backers of the Mandarin immersion program then proposed starting a Mandarin immersion charter school, which the district board rejected on Nov. 12, district officials again promised to examine how the existing immersion program is working and to talk about the district’s overall world language program.
The board meeting starts at 5 p.m. with the election of a new board president and vice president/clerk before adjourning to a closed session for labor negotiations at 5:20 p.m. The regular meeting is then scheduled to reconvene at 6 p.m. with a discussion of the Oak Knoll and Laurel schools site plans.
The discussion and vote on the district’s guiding principles is scheduled to start at 8:30 p.m.
The full agenda and some of the reports associated with it is available online.
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Barbara-
Your thinly-veiled support for the leaders of the Mandarin immersion advocacy group is getting tiresome:
1) in April 2014, the MPCSD board did not “fail[] to act” on a request to add a Mandarin immersion program.
Rather, in April 2014, the MPCSD board (appropriately) said that the district was currently focusing its efforts on several other large matters, including (i) opening a new school at Laurel upper campus, (ii) implementing common core, and, perhaps most importantly vis-a-vis starting another immersion program (iii) assessing/improving the existing Spanish immersion program run by the MPCSD.
In other words, the MPCSD board appropriately “act[ed]” by saying that it would be irresponsible to implement the Mandarin immersion program for the next year in light of the above matters already on its plate.
Moreover, the MPCSD board’s assessment of the Spanish immersion program was not (as you imply) simply in response to the April 2014 request for a Mandarin immersion program. The MPCSD board has always assessed and continues to assess on an ongoing basis its educational programs, including the Spanish immersion program — which did not graduate its first class (going K through 5) until this past year.
2) In November 2014, when the MPCSD board (appropriately) rejected the Mandarin immersion advocates’ efforts to rush through a charter school as a means of getting their way**, the MPCSD board did not (as you imply) just then “again promise[] to examine how the existing immersion program is working and to talk about the district’s overall world language program.”
The MPCSD board’s assessment of the overall world language program (like the existing Spanish immersion program) was, as noted above, something that is ongoing and not merely a knee-jerk reaction to the push for a Mandarin immersion program/charter.
**The widespread community opposition to the Mandarin immersion advocates’ petition for a charter school, as well as the propriety of the MPCSD board’s November 2014 decision to reject that petition have been reported in a generally more balanced manner by other area reporters. See, for example:
http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_26736418/dozens-speakers-lash-out-against-proposed-menlo-mandarin
http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_26935224/menlo-park-school-board-rejects-bid-create-mandarin
When the Menlo Park City School District board considered the request to add a Mandarin immersion program to the school in April, they discussed but did not vote on the item. Not voting is not taking action.
Barbara-
As reporter, you surely recognize the importance of context, framing, and choice of words.
There is a meaningful difference between saying:
the MPCSD board “failed to act on a request to add a Mandarin immersion program” (which you previously wrote),
vs.
the MPCSD board “discussed but did not vote on a request to add a Mandarin immersion program” (which you have now revised your article to state).
It is telling that you have made the above-reference revision to your article, but have not otherwise responded the other, larger point made in my comment:
Your coverage of the Mandarin immersion advocates’efforts to get a program/charter in MPCSD has a not-so-subtle slant in those advocates’ favor.
Case in point, your article on the MPCSD board’s ongoing assessment of its Spanish immersion and world language programs instead reads as if such assessment was solely in response to the requests (impatient demands?) of the Mandarin immersion advocates.
Please be more balanced in your reporting (or move to the Almanac’s blogs write with whatever slant you wish).