Hi!
I was looking to see if anybody had any success with convincing the school district to add another foreign language to the list of languages already offered at High School? Just trying to estimate whether it is possible at all.
Thanks,
Where are you getting the money to pay the teachers’ salaries and benefits?
It does not affect the amount of students in school. So, there may be one less class in another language.
Is there enough demand to fill a class? And lack of demand for another language to subtract a class?
Remember that they probably have to support multiple levels of the language. Which usually means hiring more than one teacher. There are a lot of ways to learn languages on your own (like Duolingo). Why not try one of those?
Intparent, I would be willing to take the language outside (and pay for it), but the district is making it way too complicated (=almost impossible).
No, over time it means close to one Full-Time Equivalent, since eventually one would want to have at least 4 levels, and therefore there are now 4 sections of another language that the teacher (assuming there is even a current teacher qualified to teach the new language) cannot teach.
4gsmom, there are a lot of parents that would be interested.
I do not know about the demand for other languages that are already offered.
Just to clarify - you want the high school to give credit for the language vs just looking for a way to learn another language? For credit can you try dual enrollment or a virtual high school perhaps affiliated with the school?
Is your school increasing enrollment (and therefore needing to increase foreign language teaching staff), or is there an unpopular foreign language with one teacher who has announced retirement?
If it is a district level decision, they may want to offer the same languages in all the schools, so that might be even more teachers. Duolingo is free… but the HS won’t give credit, of course.
At our public school, the process to get a course added was lengthy and required many hoops to jump through. Definitely a multi year ordeal that had to go through the curriculum office, budgeting, school board, etc…
Does your school have any dual credit relationships with a local CC or university? If so, it may be easier to see about adding a DC course than something brand new at the HS.
momtogirls2, to answer your question: we are looking to learn a language through high school AND get a credit. No virtual class for foreign languages unfortunately.
ucbalumnus, I will look into it. No sure about demand and retirement.
momof senior1, the language is not offered anywhere locally unfortunately.
So, I guess, it is incredibly hard = impossible.
Also find out if they have dropped languages recently. Our HS used to offer German…having just moved back from Germany my DD was excited to continue…but then they dropped German from the curriculum.
There could be local schools/classes for the language…e.g. there is a German school in our area for kids who want to continue to learn…they can take the Goethe language test to get certified at a level.
Another possibility is taking a class from the local community college?
Academia traditionally moves at a glacial pace. It’s safe to assume that any change, if it occurs, will not happen while your current child is attending the HS.
Obviously every school is different, but high school would almost be too late to introduce a new language class in our town. The majority of kids continue on with the language they started in 7th grade, which is when world language classes start here in earnest (though our schools dabble with them in grades younger than that).
Would your HS accept a dual enrollment class in lieu of a language class not offered at your HS? Ours accepts ASL and Japanese through DE as satisfying the HS world language requirements. That seems a less expensive compromise.
They can’t hire a teacher for one section of a class; it simply isn’t cost effective. They would want to hire a full time teacher, which typically means 5 periods per day of teaching. Do you have enough interested kids for 5 classes of instruction?
Thank you very much for your input. You raised many issues that I did not think about. I think the answer to my question is now clear to me…
PS. I wish they would allow to take the classes outside HS (on papers they do), but upon close look I realized that is not handled the way to make it effective for the students.
I wouldn’t give up so easily, personally. If you have a group of families that are interested, and the language is something useful like Mandarin, then I would approach the school board. The board is generally more responsive to things like this than the high school principal. It would also probably help to find one or two teachers already in the district who are capable of teaching the language. The thing you have to realize is that big things like this often take years, so if you want your high schooler personally to benefit, they probably won’t. But you could leave a legacy for future students, and for any younger kids you might have.
Agreed that the OP could start to assess and mobilize interest among parents and students in the school district for this new language but the benefits would go to future students, not the OP. Our local high school got rid of Latin when they added Mandarin years ago.