Together We Created A New Chapter

Weiqing Chen

After 3 months of hard work, all of us in Chinese School were excited on the last day of the 2005 fall semester. At the potluck lunch and Christmas party, teachers, students, school administrators, PTA members, and parents crowded the cafeteria and auditorium with laughter and joy. We celebrated our hard works and our accomplishments with the biggest school assembly and student performance of the year.

This year the school has seen a 15% increase in the enrollment, reaching 310 students at the end of the fall semester. School council consists of 5 school administrators, 3 teacher representatives, 3 parent representatives and a council chair. This year the school has 39 teachers and 4 PTA members, operating 27 language classes from Pre-K to 10^th grade (19 Simplified Character classes, 4 Traditional Character classes, and 4 Chinese as Second Language classes). Besides regular language classes, The school is also offering 10 cultural classes such as dance class, chess class, arts class and Taekwondo class. Teachers from The Literacy Volunteers English Tutors are also offering two free classes for adults. School is also supporting adult dance class and exercise activity.

Since the beginning of the fall semester, all school branches have been working together as a good team with the guidance of the school council. Our mission is to create a stable teaching and learning environment and a smooth school operation. Mrs. Shuxian Yu, our Treasurer, carefully and successfully managed student registration as early as last summer. Through her hard work, our school accounting and bookkeeping were handled seamlessly. Principals worked closely with teachers, PTA members and parents. We published the 2005-2006 School handbook that contains all school related information. Throughout the semester, school administrators worked on many issues, and organized many extracurricular activities. PTA members formed the classroom parents network. They completed the biggest fundraising campaign of the school year with great success. They also managed smoothly the parent-on-duty routines, as well as the potluck lunch on the last school day.

Being the core of the school operation, our teachers were the foundation of the success of the fall semester. Before the semester began, teachers started preparing syllables and working on the curriculum plan. New and experienced teachers worked together and helped with each other to ensure that not only the textbook chapters were covered, but also the outside reading materials were compiled and used. Students were therefore given more opportunities to learn and practice the Chinese language.

Teachers of the cultural classes had a busy semester. At the beginning of the semester, there were many unknown factors. Teachers worked tirelessly in many areas such as controlling class size, accommodating different levels of student’s skill, ordering teaching materials and dancing costumes and etc. The programs were run smoothly and students’ accomplishments were well displayed through student performance at the Christmas party, art show, and chess tournament.

This year, we also witnessed an increasing number of student enrollment in the Chinese as Second Language classes. Students in these classes had different levels of Chinese language skill and ability. Most of them didn’t have a Chinese language practice environment at home. Despite the challenge, our teachers made extra efforts to gather proper teaching materials and made teaching more creative and flexible. They worked hard to explain and demonstrate reading, writing and listening skills. Some teachers even helped students practicing Chinese after school through telecommunications. As a result, many students made significant progress. Teachers’ relentless efforts and contributions to the school made it possible to our continuous expansion of the Chinese language education in the Capital region.

At the beginning of the fall semester, there were a lot of issues about class size, student placement, and etc. Many teachers worked with school administrators to adjust student placement, and to open up new classes to reduce the class size. My special thanks to the following teachers: Zhengyan Wang, Yin Dong, Jenny Zhang, Jiaqi Cheng, Wenyi Zhai, Hong Mei, Yaxin Zhang, Mr. Yerdon, Mr. Grefalda, Chaoxin Yang and all our new teachers.

This school year, for the first time the school administration divided Simplified Chinese Character Classes into three groups. They are Pre-K to JT-2, JT-3 to JT-5, and JT-6 to JT-10. The school also appointed 3 group leaders, one for each group. They are Yuping Sun, Hongyuan Xia and Shi Duan respectively. With the coordination of vice principal Guoping Fei and the group leaders, 19 simplified character classes moved forward smoothly. Vice principal Bill Chien worked closely with the 4 traditional character classes to maintain a steady teaching and learning system.

The school has established many committees and activity groups. Bin Yan chaired the scholarship committee of this school year. The committee members consisted of Shengxin Jin, Peizhen Xu and Guoping Fei. After many meetings and strict reviews, the committee submitted recommendations for two winners for the 2005-2006 Chinese school scholarship. Seven students will also graduate this year. Mr. Dexiang Cao worked with school administrators to verify the graduation applications. School has granted the diploma to these students. The scholarship winners and graduates are the demonstration of their hard work. We are very proud of all of them and extend our congratulation to their success.

Vice principal Shao Lin organized many activities throughout the semester including movie show, Chinese riddle solving, photo show and art exhibit. These extracurricular activities went on continuously. They were all well received by both students and parents. Movie club members worked very hard to serve parents and other CCC members. Jianhua Chen, Mingmin Hsia, Rong Wang, Xiaoqing Zhang, as well as many other parents lent helping hands to different activities. Yi Chen was in charge of Christmas party program. Her very strict working style and her past working experiences in the Chinese School ensured a successful and fun party. Once again, Mrs. and Mr. Yin Zhang took the lead in judging the artworks at the Art Show. Their expertise has helped school activities for many years.