School Earns Top Honors

By Ed Moy

West Portal Elementary School celebrated the 25th anniversary of its ground-breaking Chinese Immersion Program (CIP) on Oct. 17.

As the first public school to develop such a program, West Portal laid the foundation for the spread of Chinese immersion programs across the nation.

"In the past 10 years, the CIP teachers at West Portal have helped many new Chinese immersion programs," stated Jennie Lee, a CIP teacher since 1995.

"The farthest place is Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I flew out there twice to help set up and give workshops to new teachers. The closest one, and most recent ones, would be the three Mandarin programs in San Francisco. On top of that, I have been giving workshops every summer to Chinese teachers. My goal is to share what works and what doesn't work and also share my resources," Lee said.

Considered one of the top performing elementary schools in the City, West Portal developed its CIP program in 1984, which began as a Cantonese total immersion program.

Prior to 1984, West Portal had 100 percent general education programs. It eventually transitioned into one third immersion program and two thirds general education.

"I'm a fifth generation Chinese American. I think being a part of the CIP program helped me feel more connected to my culture," stated former student Kelcie Wong. "Another great thing about the CIP program is that it was always a close knit community. Some of my teachers from elementary school still keep in touch with me."

According to West Portal CIP organizers, the main objective of the program is to ensure that all students develop high levels of Chinese and English proficiency and literacy.

The program is designed so that initially the majority of a student's class lessons are taught in Chinese, including math, science and social studies.

Typically, the percentage taught in Chinese is large in the initial years (80 - 90 percent) and progressively decreases with each grade until it reaches approximately 50 percent by fourth or fifth grade.

There are two different types of program enrollment compositions. One is total immersion, in which students entering kindergarten are not expected to have any previous exposure to the Chinese language. They are expected to be proficient in English for their grade level.

The other is dual immersion, in which students entering a kindergarten class speak approximately half English and half Chinese.

"Our mission is to have students become bi-literate and bi-cultural when leaving fifth grade," stated Lee. "However, in recent years we have seen more families learning Chinese as a third language. We have children who can speak Russian, English and Chinese fluently. We also have children who speak Spanish, English and Chinese beautifully. For example, recently a fifth grader's grandparents visited from Mexico and I was invited to the family dinner. Since I only speak Chinese to Mayra (the fifth grade girl) and her grandparents only speak Spanish, she translated from Spanish to Chinese and vice versa the entire dinner. That is living evidence of CIP in elementary school."

Since the launch of CIP at West Portal, a complete immersion school, Alice Fong Yu, was founded in 1995; and more recently, new programs have been developed for a Mandarin Immersion Program at Starr King (2006) and Jose Ortega (2007), and Cantonese at DeAvila Elementary School (2009).

Although the creation of the SF Unified School District's CIP was "ultimately" a parents/community grass roots effort, it took a highly committed group of parents, community members, experts and scholars to come together to research, organize, plan and create the first public school CIP in the United States.

The West Portal program's genesis can be traced back to a meeting between Superintendent Robert Alioto and Mae Lam, an assistant reporting to him.

Lam was asked to explore the feasibility and logistical requirements for creating a language immersion program based on the passion and insightful discussion Alioto had with Lin Chi Wang, a language scholar and UC Berkeley professor, who spearheaded the landmark Lau v. Nichols Supreme Court case that created a legal mandate for bilingual education and co-authored a San Francisco school board resolution to offer all students the opportunity to become bilingual.

Lam eventually led the research, planning and organization efforts that led to the launch of CIP at West Portal.

Initially a CIP high school program was added to Abraham Lincoln High School's curriculum. But the program eventually moved to Galileo High School, where it remains today.

According to West Portal parent Mark Gisi, even though a large percentage of the education is conducted in Chinese, the West Portal and Alice Fong Yu programs represent some of the school district's best performing schools in both English and math.

"Having any language program in any school is a very positive thing," stated Lee. "It not only benefits the students, but it enriches the entire school community and parents with the culture. For example, our entire school, all 564 kids, participate in the annual Moon Festival and New Year's booths every year. The impact of Chinese culture in six years on these children, CIP or not, is immeasurable."

For more information about West Portal Elementary School, call Gisi at (415) 902-3940.