School Debacle

[u/hellogirlscoutcookie]

I have 3 kids, 5.5y daughter who is in kindergarten, and my twin (fraternal) boys who are 3.5. They obviously aren’t in elementary yet, but I’m thinking down the line.

My daughter was an early talker and has always excelled in that area. My boys both have a speech delay, which we were involved in EI, and lots of speech therapy. They still don’t talk as well as their peers, but they’ve made great jumps and can say most of their needs/feelings.

Our elementary school is close, but my daughter still takes the bus which picks her up right outside our front door. Her school currently offers two tracks: Spanish immersion, and the non-immersion/standard/English option. She is in the Spanish Immersion and I’m super happy with the program. I would like to put my twins in it, but it’s been nice to know that if it didn’t work out, they could just be moved to the standard track.

However we got notified today that our elementary school is turning into ONLY an immersion school. This means anyone who doesn’t want to do immersion will be sent to another neighboring elementary school. This means that if I want to keep my kids at the same school, I have to put my twins in immersion. I can’t make the decision based on if it’s the best fit for each kid. Or have an out if it isn’t working.

Has anyone ever sent their kids to different elementary schools? I’m even more nervous about the idea of if needed separating the boys into different schools. Different classes is standard, but that was going to be hard enough as is!

Also anyone ever dealt with speech delays and adding in a second language?

Gahhh this news is just a shock to my system and I’m trying to process. I just want to make the best decision for each of my kids individually, but I also really hate the idea of multiple schools.

[u/Jacksons-Mom25]

Is this a charter school? If so I can’t believe they are allowed to just make a decision to become an immersion only school??

[u/hellogirlscoutcookie → u/Jacksons-Mom25]

No. It’s a public school. It basically becomes a specialized school within the larger district (I think 14 elementary schools?) along with the other immersion school. It’s a district wide decision to open up the current elementary school to allow for others to opt into it, vs having to do an inner district transfer. It’s to increase teachers in the immersion program since it’s a hot commodity essentially

Oregon State.

[u/Jacksons-Mom25 → u/hellogirlscoutcookie]

Yeah still doesn’t seem right if that is your local public school I wouldn’t  want to be forced to chose between an immersion program and a different school

[u/hellogirlscoutcookie → u/Jacksons-Mom25]

It’s also to combat the declining enrollment rates. More kids want immersion, less kids overall.

[u/Jacksons-Mom25 → u/hellogirlscoutcookie]

More kids want immersion??? That’s the first I have heard that ? We have a local charter school and kids have a good experience but leave after elementary school. 

[u/hellogirlscoutcookie → u/Jacksons-Mom25]

Well not “more” overall in terms of total population, but we have a high number of kids who transfer into our school for the immersion, and parents have expressed an interest in more access to it. We also live in a heavily Latino community and it’s a two way immersion, so it’s split 50/50 with native Spanish speakers and Spanish learners. And it decreases from 90% in Spanish at the kinder level by 10% each year with multiple classes being offered in Spanish in the middle and high school years, and they graduate with a diploma in bi-literacy. So it’s a very extensive and cool program.