Mandarin Headed to Capistrano Unified

This mostly from Capistrano Unified School District after Monday's meeting:

Capistrano Unified School District trustees on Monday approved a Mandarin Chinese immersion program, the first in an Orange County public school system and one of about 80 nationwide.

The program should be in place in the South Orange County school district by the 2012-2013 school year.

“A challenging economic environment is no excuse for not being able to offer new and innovative educational programs requested by our community,” Board Clerk John M. Alpay said in a statement. “There is intense demand for this language, and in an era of school choice and competition, our ability to offer this program to our families reaffirms this District’s status as an innovative provider of quality education.”

Alpay, a corporate attorney who represents San Clemente, suggested and pushed for the program.

While English is the language spoken by academics, businesspeople, aviators, and other global professionals and is the world’s third most popular language, Mandarin is the world’s most spoken language with more than 1 billion speakers, the district said. The program has proven to be welcomed by parents countywide, with 165 families having committed their students to attend the program. 

“The third pillar of the District’s strategic plan is academic achievement and enrichment. Adding this program fits right into the vision for helping student become successful in both college and career,” Trustee Anna Bryson said. “Allowing students this intense language focus will ensure that they are bilingual and biliterate when they graduate, which gives them an advantage over many of their peers who will not have this opportunity.”

Students who choose to attend the program would begin in kindergarten or first grade with 80 percent of instruction taking place in Mandarin. The program will be phased in with kindergarten, and, if feasible, first grade. The program will be placed at an existing school site, and utilize the same open enrollment policies currently in place for the district’s successful Spanish two-way immersion programs.

The Capistrano Unified School District serves 53,000 students in a 195-square-mile area of South Orange County. For more information on the Mandarin immersion program, please contact Amy Bryant, director of curriculum and instructional support, at 949.234.9254.

Read more: The Capistrano Dispatch - Capistrano Trustees Approve Mandarin Chinese Immersion Program 

Comments

[public school supporter]

What a wonderful addition for parental choice! Thank you Mr. Alpay for not using $$ as an excuse not to have this school. CUSD has had successful dual immersion programs in English/Spanish in several of the elementary schools. The added benefit to producing bilingual-biliterate students was the creation of Latino-Anglo friendships that endured in the higher grades. It is not unusual to see high school students self segregating by race or ethnicity in spite of administrations' efforts to help students desegregate. The dual immersion programs makes this happen naturally.

CUSD used to teach Japanese language and culture at Concordia Elementary and Chinese language and culture at Las Flores Middle School. The hope was to expand these programs. At that time the biggest stumbling block was finding qualified teachers for the Japanese and Chinese languages. Glad to see CUSD has found a way to bring the Chinese element back in an expanded and comprehensive way. Hopefully this school will be a huge success and the study of Chinese language and culture will be continued through middle and higher grades.

Thanks CUSD for this exciting new school! I am thrilled to see the school board has returned to focusing on excellence in education and what is best for students.

[RegisterReader]

The Chinese are communist, this is just more proof the leftist agenda of the teachers union.

[One step forward. One step backwards.]

The Register left out any mention of Trustee Alpay and his role in bringing this program to students. Too bad - he worked hard on this.

Nor did the paper mention that Trustee Bryson questions the legitimacy of "climate change".

[PacRim]

Hope it works. The district will need to hire teachers who are native Mandarin speakers with California credentials. The student body must be composed of 50% of native Mandarin speakers and 50% of native English speakers in each grade. The students will spend 80% of kindergarten being taught and learning Mandarin. Then 70% in first grade, 60% in second grade, etc. In China, all of the children are taught English because English is the common language of business around the world, regardless of the countries involved.

[Good For CUSD]

Register Reader.....while you are burying your head in the sand, the other more open minded people in the world will be preparing their children for a future in a global economy. Congrats to Mr. Alpay who was behind this. In the future, I would love to see CUSD offering many language programs, in addition to Spanish and Chinese. As is well documented, most students outside of the US speak 2 or 3 languages.

[RegisterReader]

That's only because in those other countries they don't speak English as their first language. If they spoke English as their first language they wouldn't have to speak any other languages. Think about it, can you think of any communist countries that speak English as their first language? No, but there you have the unions with their dual immersion schools teaching Spanish (Red Cuba) and Mandarin (Red China). Connect the dots people, the writing is on the wall.

[hkw]

RegisterReader, let me ask you this...have you personally been to any of the dual language immersion schools in CUSD? If you opened your mind just a crack, you might learn something about tolerance and cultural understanding.

It is intolerant people like you who paint everything with a broad, ugly brush. I'm a conservative, and find your rants offensive. Shame on you.

[Nothing but the Truth]

You guys keep forgetting that Register Reader's comments satirize the anti-union movement They are ALWAYS sarcastic. He/she must be cracking up every time someone takes the bait!

[Reality Check]

It's not all that funny to post anonymous opinions you do not hold, as an inside joke to some. Nor is it funny to laugh when others take your words at face value. Unless this blog is closed to new readership, RR is in constant need of correction by someone. (Or his/her own satiric venue.)

[Teresa]

RegisterReader...In a world that takes itself way too seriously, I really appreciate your witty comments. Not all of us have lost our funny bone!! Please continue to do what you do :)