Does the School Offer Chinese Classes or AP Chinese? Are There Many Chinese Students? Are There Chinese After-School Programs Nearby?

Whether the school offers Chinese classes depends on whether you mean elementary school or high school, and the answer is very different. In elementary school, Carmel Valley public elementary schools do not have formal Chinese classes. One thing that stands out is that Ashley Falls has a Spanish Immersion class, plus two regular classes, and parents like the small class sizes, but that is Spanish, not Chinese. In high school, the world language program at Torrey Pines includes Chinese, and AP Chinese is on its course list, so once a child reaches high school, studying Chinese formally at school is no problem.

Are there many Chinese students? Yes, a lot. Asian students make up 30 to 50 percent of the 11 elementary schools. Ocean Air and Pacific Sky are around 50 percent, and Solana Ranch is close to 50 percent. Carmel Valley Middle and Torrey Pines also have a good share of Asian students. For Chinese-speaking families, that means a child will not be in the minority at school, there will be many classmates with a similar background, and it is easy to find Chinese-speaking parents in the parent community. Several parents we interviewed said they met many Chinese parents through the school's Heritage Night, an event that brings families of different backgrounds together.

For Chinese after-school programs nearby, there are quite a few choices, but you need to tell two kinds apart. One kind is after-school clubs or PTA activities at the school. A parent at Carmel Del Mar pointed out that the math club and newspaper club are run by the PTA, not the school, and Chinese-related after-school activities are often the same kind of thing, so you have to ask the PTA or the parent community to find out about them. The other kind is Chinese schools and tutoring programs outside of school. There are quite a few Chinese-run Chinese schools in the San Diego area, with weekend classes teaching Chinese reading and writing and Chinese culture. Which one fits best depends on asking parents whose children already attend, or sitting in on a class before deciding.

One more thing is worth saying. A child who speaks Chinese at home and English at school is growing up in a bilingual environment, and that is actually an advantage. Many parents worry that the child's Chinese will slip, or that English will fall behind, but in a place like Carmel Valley, a child uses English at school every day and speaks Chinese with parents at home, so both languages get used, and neither one is likely to fall away. If parents want the child's Chinese to stay stronger, a weekend class at a Chinese school is enough. There is no need to pick a school for its Chinese classes.

So the picture is this: no formal Chinese classes in elementary school, Chinese classes and AP Chinese in high school, a very large Chinese student population, and Chinese after-school programs that come through the parent community and outside Chinese schools. When you pick a school, there is no need to treat Chinese classes as the deciding factor. The Chinese community in Carmel Valley already gives a child plenty of chances to speak Chinese and meet Chinese friends.