Looking for Feedback on Kent Gardens French Immersion Program in Mclean (Fairfax: appointed, home)

[BayAreaFamily]

Hi - I am thinking of applying to this program for my children and would love to hear any feedback, positive or negative. I read that the student-teacher ratio is high at Kent Gardens, but I don't know if that's true in the French program as well. I'm also wondering what are the chances of getting in through the lottery. We are not a French speaking family.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Priya

[claremarie]

I know several families who have sent children to this program. The reviews were mixed. One family withdrew their daughter after several years, because she had trouble keeping up with the native French speaking children in the program. I suspect that this child might have had some learning issues that would have made her struggle even in an ordinary classroom. Another family moved to northern Virginia in large part because they had spent several years living in France and wanted their children to continue learning in French. The program worked very well for the oldest child, who was a strong student, but not so well for the younger ones, who ended up transferring back to their base school. A third family LOVED the program, and was disappointed only with what they perceived to be the lack of a sufficiently rigorous follow-up program in the middle school.
Hope this helps. I don't know how difficult the lottery process is, so can't help you with that.

[ranger010]

We are a non-French speaking family and have participated in the program at Kent Gardens for the last 4 years. Our experience has been very positive overall. Our fourth-grader appears comfortable speaking French and is very enthusiastic about continuing. The first couple of years require some patience as parents -- it is a little discomfiting to have your child announce that she can't do her homework because she doesn't understand anything the teacher said that day in class! We saw significant progress by the third grade and the beginnings of fluency in the fourth grade.

Classes usually have several native speakers among the children who help in getting the message across. The school also organizes homework help for non-French speaking families and offers evening French classes for parents.

On class sizes, we've found that the student-teacher ratio starts high and tends to decrease in the French program over time as families move, some leave the program, and there are few entering students after first grade. Our experience has been a gradual decrease from the high 20s to low 20s so far.

Hope this is helpful -- if there are other specific questions, please post and we'll try to help!

[BayAreaFamily]

Thanks for your responses! We are thinking of moving into that neighborhood just so our kids could attend that school, so it's a big decision for us.

Do you think having the native speakers in ths class makes it harder for the non-native speakers? Is it highly rigorous, so only for the very strong student? Finally, for Ranger010 in particular, why do you think the program has worked so well for you and why do so many students drop out?

I should point out that my kids will be taking some French classes beforehand so they won't be completely unfamiliar with the language.

Thanks for your time.

[claremarie]

BAF, you should check with Kent Gardens regarding the enrollment procedures -- I'm not sure whether students living within the school's attendance boundaries get any preferences in the lottery.

[novaman]

My son was in the program until the 5th grade. They learn french indirectly by teaching other subjects using French. My son was taught science and math in french. We are not french speakers, and by the fifth grade it was impossible for us to help him with his homework because we could not even read the problems.

Living in the Kent Gardens school district is no guarantee that your child will be enrolled in French immersion. It is all done by lottery with certain slots allocated to those in the district, and those outside the district. If you are a French speaking family at home or if the child has a sibling in the program then preferencial treament may be given to your child, but it is still not a guarantee of acceptance.

[BayAreaFamily]

Thanks Novaman - did your son continue with French in middle school? are you glad he attended the school? any other feedback about the curriculum or teachers? was he prepared for middle school and high school?

Thanks,
Priya

[novaman]

Originally Posted by BayAreaFamily

Thanks Novaman - did your son continue with French in middle school? are you glad he attended the school? any other feedback about the curriculum or teachers? was he prepared for middle school and high school?

Thanks,
Priya

No my son did not continue with French. In fact he ended up taking three years of chinese in high school at Mclean (he just graduated). I have 2 girls still in kent gardens and neither of them are in the immersion program.
Kent Gardens, Longfellow middle school, and Mclean High school are all fabulous schools. In fact, just about any school in Fairfax County will be great. The whole system is top notch, one of the best in the country if I'm not mistaken. I've been very pleased with the education all of my children have received. The parents and educators all care about the schools around here.

So did you move here from the SF Bay area? I'd always dreamed of moving out there but never could bite the bullet...and raising a family as well as my kids' education were major issues in the decision making process.

[ranger010]

Its a fair question why the program has worked out as well as it has for us. We really have not done anything special to prepare our children for the French language instruction. With our elder daughter we spent a fair amount of time with a French-English dictionary deciphering her homework, but she is now able to do that translation function for her younger sister fairly easily.

For what its worth, I was pretty skeptical of the program when we started and concerned about whether our children would be able to progress at the same rate as the native French speakers in the class. I have not seen evidence yet that non-native speakers are unable to keep up -- the teachers will uniformly tell you that there is no correlation between speaking French at home and classroom results.

I also agree completely with Novaman on the general quality of the school -- we've had terrific teachers in the English language portion of the program each year and the school offers all sorts of extracurricular clubs and activities. I'm not sure what the lottery odds are recently (you may be able to get a response from the principal, Dr. Hooker, whose e-mail is on the website), but I don't think you'll be disappointed in the school either way.

[Pavement1]

Kent Gardens changed the ratio for the 2009-2010 school year. Now 60% of the seats are filled from within the school zone. The other 40% from outside the school zone. So there are two separate lotteries. The 60% lottery is for school zone children only. The second lottery to fill the 40%, is strictly out of zone children.


I suggest additional classes aside from the school. The program is lacking in everyday routine (life) conversation.


FYI: each immersion school has a percentage of seats that will be filled by school zones students