So I’ve posted before about getting two of ours into the local school (which is overfilled in some grades and there’s a waitlist).
We have the option to spend part of the summer/fall in the States and I am curious how it works on moving in and out of a school system. For our two who are in school their Mandarin is doing awesome, but we’d love to take the chance to be closer to family for a while and we could have them do US schools for August until November or December. I think in theory if we had a tutor and they missed the first few months of school they could still come back into it. Has anybody had an experience like this? Anybody know the rules? Ideas on how to broach this with the school? We have six or eight months until it’s an issue, but am starting to think about it now.
For our older kid, I’m also curious if places like Morrison or TES would allow mid-year admission.
Don’t know your previous posting (like maybe a lot of other readers), so I’ll ask first whether you or your spouse holds a Taiwan passport?
Do the kids?
If one of the parents do and so do the children, then the school has to accept them no matter what. That’s the easy way.
If they do not, then it falls back on if they can get on someone’s household registration to get into the closest school where you’ll be staying.
A few more details might be needed for others to help, like above for whether you all hold foreign passports, or one of you at least holds a Taiwan passport.
On a side note, what ages are the children and where (what city) are you looking at?
Kids are in first grade and we’re in Taipei on ARCs. KHHville, I think you’re right that on ARC the local school basically has to accept them within the district. Spouse is also from US on ARC.
Basically I was just wondering if anyone had worked this out with a school. Is there any chance they could be forced to go to one of the other (farther away) schools in the district with more openings? Are there rules about taking a leave, transcripts, etc. I know it’s a pretty specific question.
I’ll check the regulations later on long (more that 1 month) leave.
Locals don’t care taking a 1-week leave at the beginning and the end of a semester. So, I guess 2 week leave at the beginning should be no problem. One month may be OK.
If your kids formally quit the over-filled school to go to school in US (I guess you might need some documents from the current school to enter in a school in US), they may need to go to the other school with openings, unless you make a special negotiation with the current school. If the school is liking having foreign kids, they will make some special arrangements.
Can’t you use a system of exchange students? You maybe need to ask the school for some help to arrange it.
From all the stuff I have read on this forum and elsewhere, I can only regurgitate that if the closest elementary school does have an opening, then they will take you. If there is no opening, then you can put yourself on the waiting list while at the same time the school district should assign you to another school with open slots.
I read some old forum discussions here about the public “shen lin” [forest] schools or mountain schools that sound quite interesting in that they take in students of all kinds and the student/teacher ratio is a lot lower.
My wife’s Taiwanese cousin put her eldest son now in second grade (both parents are 100% Taiwanese) into one in Hsi-Chih, east of Taipei, and they love it. Much much less academic pressure, and they students learn all kinds of things that are more nature-oriented, etc. It’s a public school. Did I say she said there was much much less academic pressure?
Thanks Tando, this is helpful! A lot of times it’s figuring out the right questions to ask. I think the full passage says basically: “3. For long term absences, which this department defines as lasting longer than a month, in order to protect the student’s right to receive an education, the school should open a special case meeting, in order to study the student’s psychological/emotional situation and study plan, and also to visit the home to encourage the student’s instruction. The above information is for the school’s reference.”
This is a gloss, but it sounds like the written policy is for students who miss a lot of school, but that the school has leeway and I should work with them.
I’ve tended to know a few Taiwanese who do things like go to California for 1-2 months at the end of the fall semester and Lunar New Year or who leave early in June and catch the end of the US school semester. I know this is kind of a crazy plan but the idea would be to get the kids 4 months of US school and then be able to do the end of a semester here. ARCs won’t be a problem, just figuring out enrollment back-and-forth. I’m also a little nervous because our kids’ Taiwanese grades vary a lot (one kid had 60s on the final test, the other in the 90s) and in Taiwan I’ve heard kids basically can’t fail a grade, but I could also see US schools having reservations.
I think your translation is right. The policy is to protect the right of students to receive education. So, if thr school finds your kids have proper study plans, the school may approve their long term leave. I think taking a long leave is much easier than once withdrawing from the over-filled school, then trying to re-enter later.
If you care about grades, long leave would not be good for their grades. They will lose some points by missing classes and quizzes, and big points if they miss big examinations. If what you care is their achievement, even if they would not reach to expected bottom line of grades, they cannot stay the same grade. They should move to the next grade every school year.
The US is full of Mandarin immersion schools (most are public). I have a list of all of them. What area will you be in?
If there is one in the area you can just enroll in them until you leave. We moved around the US a bit and my kids were in several schools.
My kids started in Mandarin immersion in the US from kindergarten. Classes are all Mandarin - no English. Teachers are from mainland or Taiwan.
As far as Mandarin, if you get behind it is hard to catch up. Being out 3 or 4 months shouldn’t make a difference as long as your kids are reading and watching movies, etc. in Mandarin.
Thanks everyone–always a dilemma on how to slice Chinese/English as well as the other things one wants for one’s children. Some of this will come down to the employer. In the past they held on to spoken Chinese pretty well with youtube videos in Chinese, me talking to them some, and a Sunday afternoon ABT type Chinese school.
I’ve met a ton of kids who were fluent and lost it, and I’ve also met some kids that were really local and then struggled to transition over to English, so sometimes hard to thread the needle on this.
It helps to know that the school here has a lot of leeway. We may also look into one of the world language type schools when we go back. Part of the temptation is that we could maybe do four months of US school (early August-November) and then come back for almost two full months at the end of the Taiwanese semester.
