Project

Mandarin Immersion (MI) language programs in the San Francisco Bay Area are oversubscribed with lengthy waiting lists. On the peninsula, there is a group of communities, Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood City, and Menlo Park that did not have access to a public MI language program. Another resident of Redwood City and I saw this need as an opportunity to work with the local school district on creating one.

My Role

Co-founder, Community Organizer, Design Research, Communications Strategy, Web Design, Blog Author/Editor, Logo Design

Process

Understanding Stakeholders – Our first task was to connect with individuals in the community who are currently, were, and will be involved in the process of establishing a public bilingual MI language program in the local area. We met with the school district Superintendent, neighboring MI initiative leaders, local elementary school principals, parents of preschool through school aged children, parents of MI program graduates, and others to record and understand their interests, questions, concerns, and attitude toward the idea of having a MI elementary program in Redwood City.

Online Survey – To share our plans, survey interest, and build a local Mandarin language community, I set up an informational website with a blog and online survey. A short announcement and a link to the survey were posted online via every educational, social, and community media that we could access, from moms’ club BigTent forums to Chinese WeChat playgroups.  Posters were also hung on windows and bulletin boards of local community meeting places: libraries, preschools, Chinese restaurants/supermarkets, etc. The data collected from the survey helped us estimate potential enrollment for the proposed program for the next three years.

Grassroots Connections– To spread the word about the initiative and collect more information, I designed simple hand-sized flyers as a starting point for conversations at community events or on the playground. These one-on-one interactions along with survey responses helped us gather prospective parent questions and comments, which revealed the hopes, concerns, fears, and considerations that they have for a new program.  This parent perspective informed our approach to further community outreach and to researching existing area programs.

Mapping an Educational Ecosystem – In order to make a compelling proposal to the school district board to start an MI program, we needed to present a step-by-step plan that incorporated the future of the entire educational ecosystem. We identified and described the interactions between each of the components: school board, school district, teachers, students, parents, advisers, and community members.

Interviews – To learn from the experts, we recruited a team of volunteers to interview five area MI program founders.  I drafted and coordinated the interview protocol for the interviewers to ask concrete and open-ended questions about the strategies, logistical planning, and administrative processes that these founders used to start their programs. The data collected was used to flesh out not only the content of the proposal, but also the motivations and interests of the different parts of the educational ecosystem.

Point-of-View – At the same time, we connected with school board members, neighboring MI program initiative leaders, educators, and public school education advocates to assess the needs and concerns of the school board and district administration, who would ultimately be making the go / no-go response to the proposal. The insights gained from these discussions helped us craft a persuasive call to action for the school district to hear the community demands and take advantage of this opportunity to grow their school’s programs and attendance.

Outcome

Data from over 100 survey respondents plus the work of a dozen committed volunteers helped create a proposal that was approved by the school board within one year of our undertaking this project. By the following year in fall of 2015, Kindergarten and first grade at Redwood City’s first Mandarin immersion program started class, with plans to continue to grow the program until the eighth grade.