After phone calls, letters, prayers, faxes, and a few months of checking
the mailbox religiously, I finally got it in the mail- Liam’s acceptance letter
into the Spanish immersion program. It
was a long shot to get an approval for zone exemption, but it worked and we’re
thrilled. We feel it’s a way to take advantage of our stay in D.C.
The program works especially well because half of the kids in
the area already speak Spanish at home. Liam loves the idea of teaching his
friends English while they teach him Spanish. Reading, writing, and math are done primarily
in English, everything else will be in Spanish. He’ll be at this school for 2
years. The principle says after 1 year kids are functionally fluent,
and after 2 years the kids are conversationally fluent. In addition to this specialty program, we chose
this school because it was small, just over 200 kids, with above average test
scores, and the lowest student/ teacher ratio in the district.
The demographic breakdown of his school is: Hispanic
122 kids (53%) Black 103 (44%) Asian 5 (2.1%) White 2
(0.9%) We aren’t worried about Liam being the racial minority because
he’s gregarious and adaptable and luckily as a kid he hasn’t yet learned to
categorize and stereotype.
Brady actually spent his first grade as the token white kid too.
He was bussed for an hour across town to de-segregate Seattle’s schools. I'm sure this may have been stressful on his parents, but he has
positive memories of this experience. In fact when applying to University of
Maryland he wrote an essay on how this shaped his ability to accept people of
other races and cultures. We’re hoping
Liam will learn the same lessons, pick up a tangible skill, and get a multi-culturally
savvy start.
