King students go to China!

School Committee members are routinely sent notices of up-coming field trips. One caught my eye the other day.

Eighth graders from the Martin Luther King School, Jr. are going to study and visit sites around the Hangzhou Jiangnan Model School in Hangzhou, China during the first week of June.

This trip is the brain-child of Carole Learned-Miller, the energetic principal at King, who has made it something of a personal mission to build the academic program at King and recruit families to the school.

"The students going on the trip have not only studied Mandarin Chinese for a decade at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. School, but they have also given up a significant portion of their free time this semester to take an additional intensive oral language elective," Learned-Miller wrote to the School Committee. "They have also passed a series of assessments, which show that they have reached an intermediate or D2 level of Mandarin Chinese proficiency."

Amazingly, Learned-Miller and her faculty raised enough funds for the trip that the only thing the students have to pay for is their passport and Visa.

Not only does she hope that these students will continue their Mandarin studies at the high school, but she hopes that this visit will become an annual tradition at the school, where all the students K-8 now take Chinese for 30 minutes a day. She also believes that younger students will study harder knowing that they will be going on a trip in which they will use the skills they are learning.

"Being that China is now a world power and that more people speak Mandarin than any other language, we also believe we are preparing our students for the future job market," said Learned-Miller.

[Note: this is the same city where Middlebury College hosts its own Chinese study abroad program.]

The King School is one of two schools in Cambridge taking advantage of a new state program to extend the school day by two hours. Students are taking electives during the day in addition to core subjects.

In fact, The New York Times is working on a story about the school's extended learning day. I'll post the link when it's published.

All in all, I think this school is one of the best-kept secrets in town. Hopefully, not for long.

For more on the King School and all the attention it's getting click here.