“The Chinese
Immersion program will offer great new learning opportunities for
Cambridge students. I view this as the first step forward in an overall
plan to strengthen our school district.”
— Superintendent Jeffrey Young
Cambridge MA—December 8, 2010: During the Cambridge Public
School Committee regular meeting last night, members of the School
Committee voted unanimously to approve the Chinese Immersion Program at
the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. School (100 Putnam Avenue) to start full
implementation beginning September 2011. Incoming junior and senior
kindergarten families will
now have the option to choose this innovative program during the first cycle of kindergarten registration in January 2011.
In last night’s meeting, prospective families spoke out in support of
this program citing the importance of raising a bilingual child in the
21st century to gain critical skills and competitiveness in the global
economy. King School staff and teachers expressed their passion and
excitement regarding this new addition to the school’s existing Mandarin
Chinese Program. In his recommendation to the members of the School
Committee, Superintendent Young remarked that “The Chinese Immersion
program will offer great new learning opportunities for Cambridge
students. I view this as the first step forward in an overall plan to
strengthen our school district.”
The King Chinese Immersion Program received funding from the U.S.
Department of Education’s Foreign Language Assistance Program Grant to
provide resources for development and implementation over five years.
The program aims to create and implement a sequential dual-language
immersion Mandarin Chinese program for the King School starting from
junior and
senior kindergarten next year. In dual-language immersion
education, students receive their daily instruction through English and
Chinese. Students will maximize their learning potential by becoming
proficient speakers, readers and writers of Chinese and English while
realizing their potential in all of their academic subjects.
Thanks to the leadership of Superintendent Jeffrey Young, Deputy
Superintendent Carolyn Turk, along with their close collaboration with
Mayor David Maher, School Committee Members Alfred Fantini, Richard
Harding, Marc McGovern, Patricia Nolan, Nancy Tauber, and Alice Turkel,
Cambridge is proud to be the first public school district in New England
to offer a Mandarin Chinese immersion program. City Councilor Leland
Cheung also attended the meeting in support of the program. For more
information about the Chinese Immersion Program at the King School,
please contact King School Principal/Project Director Gerald Yung at
617.349.
6962 x150 or Project Coordinator Vivian Tam at 617.599.7258.