I applaud Hua Mei for wanting to teach the Mandarin immersion method. If she doesn't want to enroll her kids in the SOMSD, she can home school them in this method. If her goal is to have her kids go to private school, then by all means she should apply to one of several fine private schools in the area and use her own resources to pay for it. However, if Hua Mei's intent is to start the Hua Mei Charter School, which is a business, then she should be honest about it by getting a small business loan, pay for it herself, and charge her students private school tuition.

I agree, Robin. Especially these days, to take money out of an already strapped district and put it into a school that would serve so few is just ridiculous (and appears a bit selfish).

I strongly oppose the opening of a boutique charter school that would siphon much needed funding from our already cash-strapped school district. Please sign the iPetition link above and this petition on Change.org--the more signatures we have the more powerful our collective voice becomes!

http://www.change.org/petitions/nj-education-commissioner-chris-cerf-reject-the-hua-mei-charter-school-application

The lack of discourse on this whole subject is disappointing. Doesn't everyone understand that the students don't all have to come from the district? Students can come from all over the state. If you are concerned about losing dollars, then don't send your kids - then you don't lose a dime! However, if you are predicting that 40 students will actually WANT to attend, then the bigger question is "what can the district do to improve the curriculum to meet what some people clearly see as an educational need?" Time for hard self-examination as to how to improve you own services. Maybe as a community, we could evaluate and help with cost reduction (receiving district, reduction of legal fees, etc.)? And in response to the "this is not the right time" argument - there is NEVER a right time. Public schools, even in the best of financial times, are strapped for cash. National and statewide politicians seem to love nothing better than to cut our funding. So when is the right time? Perhaps this is a situation where the district could work with the charter school folks to find a way to develop a program internally? Englewood has one and it is doing well! Can we all stop with the nasty verbiage and work together to find a way to improve our schools, and clearly, some parents feel that a stronger world language program would benefit ALL our children. Anyone up for a little "working together?"

Millburn's decision to cut world languages was announced in spring of 2011 - that was when the charter school debate began in earnest. But after the whole charter school debate of this summer, notice that Millburn has decided to re-establish a world languages program, which may provide Spanish and/or Mandarin for their K-5 students. How exciting! Kudos to the Millburn BOE for seeing that parents wanted to maintain this kind of programming for their children! Chatham just hired Mandarin teachers, there are now 2 mandarin immersion pre-k's and the new SALTA! school provides spanish immersion locally. The writing is on the wall, folks - the world is increasingly multi-cultural and other nations are rising. Charter schools are public schools after all, and what is stopping the district from finding a way to being the program in-house, thereby keeping ALL the money, plus taking in money from any student who chooses to come from out of district? Why is this not being discussed openly as a way to enhance our current district? Of course there will be difficulties, but I can't imagine creative solutions can't be found in our towns full of intelligent, creative, driven thinkers. Come on folks - thinking caps on!

Jingo, I'm honestly curious to know if you have any children in the M/SO public schools? And if so, are you familiar with the school budget process -- and what's been happening to our school budget in the last few years?

Jingo,
Your comment "...if you are predicting that 40 students will actually WANT to attend..." represents less than 1% percent of the SOMSD. Do you really mean to suggest that the entire SOMSD should set aside money for a chosen few? Would you consider volunteering to teach Mandarin in the SOMSD so that all of the students benefit?

Or course! It is terrible! I was most impressed during a school tour many years ago of the Marshall School - there was a beautiful quilt project hanging in the main hall. When I asked about it, the administrator leading the tour said that a very intrepid teacher had reached out to community businesses and found sponsors to support this amazing project. This teacher had to reach outside of the school budget. I know in West Orange, the superintendent there is reaching out to all sorts of sources for support of the schools (I admit I am sketchy on the details, but I admire his resourcefulness). I understand that you may find my tone a bit pollyanna-ish, but if Brian O. called me tomorrow and said, "come and help me find a way to add a world language program, I will pay you nothing," I would be at his office within the hour. I say this because I truly believe that the more they take away from our schools, the more we have to step up and provide for our kids. I have served the PTA, and they do SO much for the schools - I applaud them, too. But if we, as a community, decide that we too, like Millburn, want to try to find a way to get a world language program going for our elementary aged students, I would pull all the research I can from the districts across the state that have elementary programs and track down where they are getting their grants from...and we go after those same grants and funding sources. We can only try.

Also, I have to ask, does really only 1% want it? If Spanish or Mandarin were offered, do we think more students would want it? I don't have the answer, I am just asking what we all think. All our tax dollars fund all the programs in the schools - sports, band, clubs, etc. We all contribute to programs that NOT every kid utilizes, and we are happy to do so, right? How is this any different from the fencing team? And by the way, I am NOT talking about the charter school, I am talking about finding a way to get world languages back in our elementary schools. And yes, if I were fluent in Mandarin or Spanish, I would consider volunteering somehow (I don't know you can without an actual teaching degree). Look, I am not looking for an argument - I am looking for other people who might be interested in helping to vet this process and see whether or not it is feasible.

Unleb, let me reiterate, if a charter were to be established in maplewood, any student from any other town brings their own district money with them - not money from Maplewood. SO that is not lost funding from our district. From following the issue, I am gathering that people would love more world language education for their kids, just not in the format of a charter school. I mean, wouldn't you be happy if your kindergartener could have Spanish or Mandarin (or any other world language) lessons? That is all I am saying - the conversation needs to be clear. Not wanting the charter is NOT the same as not wanting more language education. Don't you agree?

We actually do have a world language program for our elementary students in SOMSD. Starting in 3rd grade, all students take Spanish. In addition, there is an innovative program offered to 3-5 graders through the world languages department. For a very modest fee (I think it is $60 for the year), students can choose to take French, Italian or Latin after school. The program uses advanced language students from CHS as instructors under the supervision of the language teaching staff. In my opinion, this is a great example of a creative way to offer more opportunities to learn world languages for SOMSD students. Both programs are open to all 3rd-5th graders, rather than only a select few.

Fabulous! I think I was assuming that the idea was to start them earlier - at K. And yes, the $60 fee is VERY reasonable, but it is after school. I was more excited about the idea of being able to standardize it for all students starting in Kindergarten. There was a very motivated teacher in Montclair who single-handed created a program at Nishuane School, which is K-2, and all students are studying Mandarin twice a week there. Really very exciting - she found the funding for this, even in the down economy. My understanding is that she had to go and find the money. Let's find out more about how she did that! If language acquisition is easiest for most chidren up to aged 7, then seeking earlier introduction to these languages is ideal, don't you think?

I would love to see world language instruction offered from k on up for all SOMSD students. However, I have watched the BOE struggle with the budget each year, deciding what to cut that will do the least damage since costs rise higher and faster than the revenue to pay them. So not sure how we would pay for additional language instruction at the earlier grades. The teacher at Nishuane school sounds great. Perhaps you can talk to her about where she found the money for her program and submit the idea and info to the BOE. Many people would support enhancing world language instruction in our district schools if it could be done in a way that did not decimate important existing programs.

Openness/disclosure for SOMSD's spending/budget priorities seems to be improving. I have read many sources on the charter school. I watched the BOE meeting from MMS. I was stunned to hear of a proposed million dollar "sate-of-the-art" acquatic center for SOMSD. Given massive layoffs of paraprofessionals (to assist kids in classroom) this seems out of this world. .

This budget info from BOE for SOMSD was news to me, and I a fairly involved observer of loacl govt affairs. Was SOMSD's budget proposal given to our officials before budgets was presented at the public meeting or not? Its my understanding that budget data is to be presented/shared in advance with BOS/BOSE - those who are elected to serve as "trustees" of our public monies. If we are to hold our elected officials accountable, the budget date should be given in advance.

I applaud efforts to increase public discourse about schools budgets thru being televised/web cast BOE meetings as schools costs make about 2/3 of our taxes.
As I watched the 12/15/11 BOE meeting from MMS I could ONLY hear OFFICIALS comments - not the PUBLICs. It's a key responsibility of BOE and govt to inform the public about spending of their money. In order to be informed you have to be able to HEAR as well as SEE meetings. Based on my understanding there is outsourced high tech company is responsible for enhanced TV/web transmissions, is there no one monitoring audio levels during meeting tapings?