Keep Chinese Immersion in West Ada and Gateway!!

This program has been wonderful for two of my Grandchildren. It is great for them to learn about the culture and languages of other countries.

Please save this program!!!

As a native speaker of Mandarin, I know the importance of understanding different cultures. Save the program, it's worth it!

This is a wonderful program that is offered. It would be a shame if it was lost.

My chiller have been enrolled in the immersion program since kindergarten. My son is now in 6th grade. We have been committed to this program from the start. It is a great disappointment to face the possibility that it would be taken away

I fully support the program, having had Schild in it for five years.

This program is important to our families and our children. The program needs to continue!

My concern with closing the Immersion program is that we will have many teachers displaced, a solo kindergarten teacher with no one to collaborate, we would lose our PTA program, any money raised throughout the year, numerous classroom volunteers, and our school scores will plummet due to the nature of the student body that remains at the small neighborhood school. Our Immersion parents help our neighborhood school more that anyone realizes. I have heard about parents who have chosen to move to Boise because of our program and it is an important culture that we have built and will be a language that will be important for world trade and commerce in the future. Let's keep this going and make it work!

This program is so important for my children. Please don't take that away from them! A new principal who can make decisions would be a good start in making this program succeed.

Keep the program, lose the principal that can't run it properly.

Keep this program...

My niece absolutely loves this program, I love hearing her sign to us. I feel like if it's taken away this kids will loose the opportunity to learn so much about mandarin chinnese,culture. Please don't take this opportunity from this kids and future generations.

Supporting diversity.

This is an awesome program! I wish my kids had this kind of an opportunity!

Me and my family are completely agree with keep a " Chinese Inmersion Program" at Gateway School.

Board of Directors of West Ada School District, I am writing you today to discuss the Gateway Immersion Program. On March 17th our family received notice from the West Ada School district that the Gateway Immersion Program would be ended and phased out with the current students if enrollment continued to be high enough through 5th grade. This abrupt notification came as quite a shock to my wife and I as we have invested thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours into our child’s education at the Gateway Immersion Program. Of even more shock is that the notification came after the lottery had been conducted and placements made into the program for next years Immersion Program, of which I had a child preparing to attend this program. This would be my third child to enroll in Gateway’s Immersion Program. If I may, I would like to give you some background on our family’s choice to attend the Gateway Immersion Program. Five years ago my wife and I were preparing to send our first child into the public school system. We had prepared her with 2.5 years of pre-school. We felt that investing in our child’s early education and engaging with her at an early age would only give her the best opportunity to become successful in what we were witnessing as a non-priority education system in Idaho. What I mean by this is at that time, Idaho was ranked at #49 for education. We were in the middle of a recession and thanks to the legislature and governor we were not oblivious to the funding cuts that were occurring with education. This further placed the burden to us as parents to find best education possible here in Idaho. We considered home schooling, private religion based schooling, charter schools and public schooling in the then Meridian School District. After much thought, research, and visiting with schools we made the choice to enroll with the best option available in this valley; Gateway Immersion Program. This program promised our child a bi-lingual education through

Though Tristan attends Gateway as his home school we were more than excited when we were introduced to the Chinese Immersion Program. With option of fundraising and volunteer parents it is beyond my belief that the school is dropping the program. It would be such a loss and promises filled with false hope. I would loose a great deal of respect for those that could not prevent this from happening. It is certainly not do to the lack of interest or support from students and parents in the immersion program.

My kids love the program and the school, but will anything be done about the low test scores the school receives? Knowing a 2nd language is nice, but if they are falling behind in everything else, is it worth it?

My 2 kids and I have been talking about going to Chinese school since they were 1 and 3. I literally jumped for joy and cried a littke when my first got picked in the lottery! Such an amazing opportunity! They see the world in divers ways and are able to see different points of view it think from the fact of the simple knowledge that one thing can be called by many names!

Keep Chinese Immersion at Gateway