New Language Immersion School Open in Panama City

[Camp Creek Kid]

Just wanted to pass this information along.

Panama City Renaissance School is a private language immersion school that opened 2 years ago in Panama City. They have an incredible curriculum that meets international standards. The unique thing about this school is that they completely immerse the students in Mandarin Chinese by teaching other subjects (math, history, etc.) in Mandarin. They also teach Spanish and English. The goal of the school is to have its students (who are English speaking) to graduate with fluency in English, Mandarin, and Spanish. Besides languages, the school also provides a state-of-the-art academic education.

I was among a small group of parents who met with the director of the school last night. We saw a kindergartner read and speak Mandarin. It was incredible.

The Panama City Renaissance School currently has only the PreK-1 grades, but due to great interest, they are considering opening up the school to higher grades to children 8-13. The school will eventually go through high school. The new students in the upper grades will be taught Mandarin and eventually have 4 hours a day of Mandarin as well as an hour each of Spanish and English, with all of the other school subjects taught mostly in Mandarin. This school really seems like it will provide a high quality education that can't be found anywhere else locally. Tuition is extremely reasonable.

If you are interested in this school, there is a website at http://www.pcrschool.org. You can PM me and I can give you contact info. of a local mom who is helping to organize the upper grades.

 

[GoodWitch58]

Where is the school physically located? How far from Seagrove?

 

[Camp Creek Kid]

Right now the school is in Panama City, but there are several people trying to work out transportation options. They are planning to move west onto the beach when they can find a space.

 

[WLD]

Great news!

My children attend an International Bacculaureate international school. Grades K-5 are total immersion programs in several languages.

intense language study continues in middle and high school. Many students are able to graduate with the bilingual IB degree, which means they are at native fluency level in two or more languages. Other academic standards are equally high. Graduates from the school go to the best colleges and universities around the globe.

Intensive language study is not right for every child, but for many kids it is a fantastic educational opportunity. Wonderful to hear that it will now be available in the SoWal area!

 

[beachmouse]

The one complaint I've heard about foreign language immersion programs is that there's often a lag in the development of English language reading and writing skills. So a parent sending their kids to one of those kinds of schools really needs to encourage English language reading outside the classroom. (Which isn't a bad idea regardless of type of school attended)

 

[Westender]

I am a parent of one of the amazing Kindergarteners at the PCRS and I will tell you that it is an amazing school, I drive my son into Panama City (cove area) every day from the westend of PCB because we feel that this is an opportunity that we just can't miss. The comment about the worry about an english lag is not the case with this school. My son is learning things in english that I never learned (or remember learning). The focus in this school is both language immersion and accelerated acedemics and have a well rounded exposure to all of the acedemics, next year they are adding a K3 to compliment the K4, Kindergarten and 1st Grade classes currently offered, and with the talk of adding the upper grades excites all of the parents in the PCRS. Our 4 year old will be starting the K4 program next year.