Over the past few months, Andrew has been talking A LOT about Kindergarten. One week he is scared because he watched a tv show on some kids channel that informed him that going to kindergarten means “going away from your mommy and daddy.” The next week all he can talk about is how he can’t wait to get to kindergarten because it means he’ll be a big boy. It’s like he is keenly aware that kindergarten is a milestone and a big step. And as scared as I am about him leaving his cozy preschool, I know he is ready to spread his wings. I see it in the way his big brown eyes intently study puzzles in a Highlights magazine. I hear it in his inquisitive, non-stop and surprisingly logical and endless questioning about every subject under the sun. I see it in the way he enjoys trying to “read” books to his little brother—which really just entails him describing the picture in the book—but hey it’s a start. He is spreading his wings into this amazing butterfly and I feel like I can’t let him down.
That’s why this quest for securing a slot at a bilingual immersion elementary school has increasingly become an all encompassing obsession. A few weeks ago, me and another mom, (my friend Mimi) had the chance to chat during a drop off or pick up. We were both wondering what the other’s plans were for elementary school. Besides the fact that Mimi and I are friends, we thought it would be nice if we could look forward to the idea of our kids staying together. Mimi’s daughter Alicia and Andrew have been classmates since the age of 2. They’re in the same pre-k room at CentroNia, and whether loving one another or fighting, they’re like peanut butter and jelly– they go well together.
Alicia is a blond, blue eyed, feisty, ½ Cuban bundle of quick witted energy. I remember a few weeks ago, before I started my new job, I rolled out of bed and threw on any old pair of jeans and a sweatshirt to take the boys to school. I had washed my hair the night before and let it dry naturally, so it had dehydrated into an unruly wavy poof. It looked like I had an
unfortunate meeting with electricity. I dropped Andrew in his classroom and as I was signing him in, Alicia runs over to me looking like she could not believe what she was witnessing and said, “what happened to you hair?” and before I could answer she followed with, “You need to go do something to it.” Amused, I chuckled and casually conceded the point, “yeah, I know I do.” These kids, they’re way too much for me.
Anyway, Mimi and I, upon chatting, discovered that we were both frustrated with the way Montgomery County handles the admissions process to the Spanish immersion schools because the process does not recognize and grant any special consideration to kids coming from CentroNia. Before you ask the inevitable question, “why should they?” Let me explain:
CentroNia moved into the county in 2007 as an established program with decades old roots in Washington, DC. It is entirely county funded. CentroNia founder Bebe Ortiz told the Washington Post that all of Centronia’s grants come for Montgomery County. If Montgomery County is going to recognize and fund this pre-k program, accredited by the Maryland State Department of Education, teaching the County preferred Creative Curriculum in a Spanish immersion format—the County school system should make provisions for the graduating kids to continue in any of the county’s Spanish immersion elementary programs. But currently, that’s not how it works.
Under current admissions guidelines, any parent wanting access to a Spanish immersion elementary program in Montgomery County must go through the lottery. So Mimi and I (and all the other CentroNia parents) who have invested years already in bilingual education and have bilingual preschoolers have to wait with our metaphorical breaths held to see if a computer selects our kids to go to a Spanish immersion elementary school to hold onto the language they have already begun to learn—competing with kids whose parents have nothing invested yet.
The more Mimi and I talked about it, the more we were compelled to act, so we wrote letters to the Montgomery County Schools office of Consortia Choice and Immersion Programs. And the answer we got was not encouraging… what was the answer? I am sorry dear blog reader but you have to wait until tomorrow. I have to be at work super early and I need to get some sleep. But to give you a preview, we lost the battle, but we have yet to cede the war!
That’s why this quest for securing a slot at a bilingual immersion elementary school has increasingly become an all encompassing obsession. A few weeks ago, me and another mom, (my friend Mimi) had the chance to chat during a drop off or pick up. We were both wondering what the other’s plans were for elementary school. Besides the fact that Mimi and I are friends, we thought it would be nice if we could look forward to the idea of our kids staying together. Mimi’s daughter Alicia and Andrew have been classmates since the age of 2. They’re in the same pre-k room at CentroNia, and whether loving one another or fighting, they’re like peanut butter and jelly– they go well together.
Alicia is a blond, blue eyed, feisty, ½ Cuban bundle of quick witted energy. I remember a few weeks ago, before I started my new job, I rolled out of bed and threw on any old pair of jeans and a sweatshirt to take the boys to school. I had washed my hair the night before and let it dry naturally, so it had dehydrated into an unruly wavy poof. It looked like I had an
unfortunate meeting with electricity. I dropped Andrew in his classroom and as I was signing him in, Alicia runs over to me looking like she could not believe what she was witnessing and said, “what happened to you hair?” and before I could answer she followed with, “You need to go do something to it.” Amused, I chuckled and casually conceded the point, “yeah, I know I do.” These kids, they’re way too much for me.Anyway, Mimi and I, upon chatting, discovered that we were both frustrated with the way Montgomery County handles the admissions process to the Spanish immersion schools because the process does not recognize and grant any special consideration to kids coming from CentroNia. Before you ask the inevitable question, “why should they?” Let me explain:
CentroNia moved into the county in 2007 as an established program with decades old roots in Washington, DC. It is entirely county funded. CentroNia founder Bebe Ortiz told the Washington Post that all of Centronia’s grants come for Montgomery County. If Montgomery County is going to recognize and fund this pre-k program, accredited by the Maryland State Department of Education, teaching the County preferred Creative Curriculum in a Spanish immersion format—the County school system should make provisions for the graduating kids to continue in any of the county’s Spanish immersion elementary programs. But currently, that’s not how it works.
Under current admissions guidelines, any parent wanting access to a Spanish immersion elementary program in Montgomery County must go through the lottery. So Mimi and I (and all the other CentroNia parents) who have invested years already in bilingual education and have bilingual preschoolers have to wait with our metaphorical breaths held to see if a computer selects our kids to go to a Spanish immersion elementary school to hold onto the language they have already begun to learn—competing with kids whose parents have nothing invested yet.
The more Mimi and I talked about it, the more we were compelled to act, so we wrote letters to the Montgomery County Schools office of Consortia Choice and Immersion Programs. And the answer we got was not encouraging… what was the answer? I am sorry dear blog reader but you have to wait until tomorrow. I have to be at work super early and I need to get some sleep. But to give you a preview, we lost the battle, but we have yet to cede the war!
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