World Language Programming at JAMS

World languages have generated the most emails to this blog and also have been prominent in the comments to several posts.  Clearly this is a topic that lots of us care about!  Principal Montgomery has said that Karen Kodama, the district's International Education Administrator, is helping with planning and continuity for world languages at JAMS.

Ms. Montgomery earlier sent us the following: "Yes to foreign languages, starting for 6th graders. At this point, I can say absolutely Spanish and Japanese due in large part to preparing students for high school. I will need to see the number of current 6th graders in French before making a decision."

Choosing the languages won't be easy -- there are continuity issues for students transferring to JAMS from Eckstein, Hamilton, and Jane Addams K-8, as well as issues of preparing students for language study at the high school level at Nathan Hale, Garfield, and Ingraham.

	JA K-8	Eckstein	Hamilton	Hale	Garfield	Ingraham
Chinese	X			maybe in the works?
Japanese		X	X	X	X	X
Spanish	X	X	X	X	X	X
French		X		X	X	X

 Eckstein offers three languages starting in 7th grade. Hamilton has only 2 languages, but offers them for three years. 

KM pointed out in a comment: "From what I understand, two years of a World Language taken in middle school counts towards one year of high-school level World Language, so a student who has taken a World Language, for two years, in middle school could enter at the second year level in high school."  


Spanish: Definitely will be offered
Paula Montgomery has stated that Spanish will definitely be offered at JAMS.  

French: On the fence

As noted above, Ms. Montgomery will need to see how many kids would be interested in French before a decision is made about whether to offer French.  L. A. emailed us:

My son is a current seventh grader at Eckstein. Students are not able to begin a foreign language at Eckstein until 7th grade so if Ms. Montgomery is counting current 6th grade students taking French then Eckstein would have zero or none. I'm worried this will impact her decision on whether or not to offer second year French to incoming eight graders.

For Nathan Hale, two years of middle school foreign language classes allows a freshman student to start the same language at a second year high school level. My son would need to continue French in eighth grade in order to qualify for this two year deal. French is offered at Nathan Hale.

He loves his current French teacher at Eckstein, wants to continue French next year (and at the high school level), and is very disappointed to hear he may not have that opportunity at the new JAMS. 

Lori had previously commented and pointed out that this might be a place to use mitigation funds:

I'm curious how languages will be handled with kids coming in from Eckstein and Hamilton, which have slightly different offerings. Both have Spanish and Japanese, but only Eckstein has French. Seems those kids already studying French should be able to continue, but will there be enough to support a teacher? I hope this an area where the district can provide mitigation funds. That is, even if it's only a handful of kids, and such a low number generally wouldn't justify a position, they'll make a "hardship" exception so children can continue their chosen language. A school with 700 kids probably wouldn't normally offer 3 different languages, but this one should have to, given the circumstances.

Japanese: Continued from HIMS and Eckstein but possibly phased out

 Wedgwood Family commented: "Paula also mentioned three years of language being offered to every student and phasing out Japanese for new langauge learners and adding Mandarin. Will JAMS become an international school?"

Shannon commented: "For the Japanese Language program at HIMS they have an exchange program and end of the year trip for 8th graders who have had 2 years of Japanese. My son was looking forward to participating."

Ms.Montgomery has indicated that Japanese will be offered at JAMS; however, she has stated that Japanese might be offered only temporarily, until the 7th and 8th graders coming from Eckstein and Hamilton have moved on to high school.

Mandarin Chinese: A Possibility

At her meeting with Sacajawea parents, Paula Montgomery mentioned that Hale is actually encouraging her to offer Mandarin Chinese at JAMS. It sounded as though Hale was considering or instituting a Mandarin track.

Z. X. emailed us:  

"I would very much like to see that Chinese is offered as an option for foreign language at the new JAM middle school. Many students would have liked to taken it if it were offered at HIMS (or at least their parents would have liked their kids to take it). In fact, many parents lobbied the principle at HIMS, but it was not possible because the foreign language teachers were already hired there.  Since JAM is starting new, this will be a golden opportunity to start to offer Chinese. It would be a strategically smart move."

KM commented: "JA K-8 offers Spanish and Chinese/Mandarin (Mandarin is new this year). Historically, languages at the K-8 were only available for 7th and 8th graders, but I'm not sure if that still applied to this year's (large) 6th grade class."

As mentioned above, Ms. Montgomery has mentioned the possibility that JAMS and Hale could institute a continuous track for Mandarin Chinese.

Language travel opportunities?
A few commenters have written about how much their Eckstein or Hamilton students have been looking forward to traveling with their language classes in their 8th grade year. These do indeed sound like amazing opportunities that would be really hard for these kids to give up. 

Shannon commented: "For the Japanese Language program at HIMS they have an exchange program and end of the year trip for 8th graders who have had 2 years of Japanese. My son was looking forward to participating"

JoRo commented: "Please offer French. I hope you are able to pull together a language travel program for language students. That is the #1 thing my kid was looking forward to - for her 8th grade at eckstein."

Leanne G. commented:

For the Spanish program, Eckstein students travel to Costa Rica after the end of school each year...it is typically a combination of tourism and service projects, as well as home stays with host families. Ihave only heard good things about it...my daughter would have participated next year after her 8th grade year. I think the best way to learn about these programs is to have language leads/Paula schedule some time with the coordinating teachers at Eckstein or Hamilton. Apollonia Guerra is the Eckstein Spanish teacher who coordinates the Costa Rica trip.

Information from Paula Montgomery on JAMS Programming

Thank you all for your comments and questions on the last post. We asked Paula Montgomery, the JAMS Planning Principal, for information on planned meetings with families. We also sent her the link to the last post so she could see what some families are thinking about.

Ms. Montgomery is working on a master calendar of currently scheduled meetings with families and will get it to us at the beginning of next week to post. We know from a meeting she had with a group of Sacajawea families last week that she is planning multiple appearances at PTA meetings and with kids at Eckstein and Hamilton who will be geo-split away to JAMS to get their perspectives. Definitely watch for that master calendar and take advantage of the chance to get to know her and ask her questions.

Here are Ms. Montgomery's "quick big answers" to questions posed on the blog. 

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1. Yes, JAMS will have Algebra 2 next year. It looks as if we may have enough qualified students for two sections.

2. Geometry and Algebra 1, no problem. Plenty of sections.

3. Yes, for band and orchestra program. Just added a second music room to the plans for Phase 2 (summer 2014). The number of sections/levels will be driven by student needs. Both Hamilton and Eckstein band directors are involved in planning.

4. Working on initial instrument and library inventory with district.

5. Yes to foreign languages, starting for 6th graders. At this point, I can say absolutely Spanish and Japanese due in large part to preparing students for high school. I will need to see the number of current 6th graders in French before making a decision.

6. Spent day at Garfield, learning what needs to happen in APP at the middle level for students to be successful in 9th grade. Plan to visit Ingraham as well.

7. Yes to biology. Hoping to pull off science electives as well. Our school site is an amazing resource for environmental sciences. In conversation with science leaders in the district to develop possibilities.

8. Teacher leader positions are now posted! An all Seattle district email should be sent out next week, alerting teachers about the opportunity. Hope to have interviews in late December. May have to interview in early January given how busy December is . These leaders should be on board by mid-January.

9. Other programming decisions are waiting for 1) student data review, 2) teacher leader input, 3) student input, and 4) parent input.

And now I have a BIG ask. If anyone out there is able/willing to do pro-bono work on logo design. I would love to connect. Our BEX levy is really covering academic spaces and curriculum and this is an area that has not been addressed. Would love to use the expertise of a professional to start designing logo/mascot possibilities and have our future JAMS students select the mascot/colors/etc prior to February. The architect for the project then can include these elements into finishes for our school.
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If you're interested in providing some design help, Ms. Montgomery can be reached at p l mont gomery at seattle schools dot org. [remove all spaces, replace words with symbols.]

Also, information that Ms. Montgomery passed on from Tracy Libros in response to the questions raised by maps of the JAMS, Eckstein and Hamilton attendance areas: they are working on "enlarged (and therefore more detailed) maps of the middle school attendance areas for JAMS, Eckstein, and Hamilton."  Dr. Libros provides this info for families: "For specific information on where your child will be assigned for next year (2014-15), please go to the Address Lookup Tool on the district’s web site. We are in the process of updating that information for 2014-15 to reflect changes approved by the School Board. We expect to have the updated information posted the week after the Thanksgiving break."

Now a request from us to you: please share the address of this blog with people you know. The more community involvement, the better it will be. Thanks.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everyone!