Starr King Tour 11.4.2014

Tour

Language

Hours

Distance

Greatschool Rating

API Score

Type

Middle school

Asian

White

Hispanic

African American

2 or more races

Starr King

11/4/2014

Mandarin

8:40-2:40

2.75

6

812

k-5

Aptos

27.00%

19.00%

18.00%

17.00%

7.00%

Starr King has been on the top of my list since the beginning. After the disappointment at Jose Ortega. I was dreading that we would not like Starr King either. In the moment of panic, i signed up for a lot more tours just to cast our net wider.

Turned out all my worries were unfounded. We loved Starr King!  So relieved.

The location is convenient. Google navigation was a little strange and led us up the hwy 101 for half a mile and then told us to get off at Cesar Chaves, while we could have just taken Alemany then Bayshore, would have been a lot more straight forward.

Tons of parking around the school, panoramic view around the bay and the ocean.

We loved the parents who led the tour, they were down to earth and sincere. they made us feel like we could be comfortable with this community. which also helped me understand why we didn't feel right at Jose Ortega.

The students demographic were evenly distributed across all four major races of SF: Asian, White, Latino, and African American. The make up of GE does look like what everyone else said, mostly Latino and Black, just like Glen Park. But even with the same make up. the GE here feels a lot more in control and calm than the Glen Park classes we saw.

We liked the Mandarin classes (Kindergarten, 2nd grad, and 1st grad) we saw, both the classroom interaction and the teachers. K was teaching them how to write the word 木 (一横，一竖，竖要出头，一撇（撇不能出头），we left before they get to 一捺）。2nd Grade was doing writing in English, but we saw their Chinese reading material on the table which was an fairly long article on cat and fish. 1st grade class started with one student asking everyone else to identify the weather of the day (下雨吗？打雷吗？多云吗？不是不是不是，是晴天）; then they switched to the teacher help them review the new word they learned this week, 坐，and students try to make a phrase using the new word (组词）: 坐下，坐好，坐车。reminds me of my elementary school days.

The school seems well organized, all the exterior doors were secure and locked.  the classrooms were nicely laid out, not as chaotic as we saw in Jose Ortega.

I liked the Parents' description of the principle (very effective and get things done, some teacher/ parents complained about no wifi, and she fixed it in a day; she is effective at recruitment and she is also well connected within the SFUSD so it is easier for her to get things done).

I was really moved by one of the parents describing her experience at getting in Starr King, she had to wait till a week after school started. and she was crying when she finally got it (she listed 14 schools on her list and got none all 4 rounds before school started). Even though she had Jose Ortega as her first choice since she lived very close by, but she decided to stay in Starr King because of the bound she formed with the parents community.  She got teary eyed herself when she explained how relieved she was when she found out she got in and i started to get teary eyed too.

The Parent also told us that this year they had 3 spots left unfilled when school began and the district never released those spots. leaving them for Spring transfer instead.

Another parent who led most of our little group had three children going to starr king, she said one of them had learning disability. While they had him in a private school (Synergy), they told her to go to a super expensive place to get diagnosed first($5k) and then hire private tutor. But at Starr King, the on-site psychologist did 5 sessions with her son and finally identified the issue and had specialist working with him 90 minutes a week all free of charge. The same parent did say if you have a specially talented child, you might feel frustrated in public school. She also said that mandrian immersion kids will experience a drop in English ability around 3rd grade comparing to their Peers in GE. but don't despair, they will catch up and often come above average in 5th grade.

i canceled all of our remaining tours except SF Community (trimmed our total toured school from 13 to 7), which will be next Monday. Then we are done! So happy. We will turn in our application after we got back from Taiwan in early Dec. Then get Noah to take the language assessment. and hopefully he will pass as a native speaker and then our work will be done!

hurray!