Yu Ming Parent involvement
Our son was offered a spot for kindergarten in the fall at Yu Ming Charter School and I'd love to hear from current parents, particularly parents of kids in kindergarten or younger grades. I'm not a Mandarin speaker, but am excited about the idea of bilingual education. I'd love to hear from other Yu Ming parents who don't speak Mandarin how it's been for your family. Do all the teachers speak English to be able to communicate with the parents? If you don't speak Mandarin, have you been able to volunteer in the classroom? In general, how are the kindergarten teachers?
Mar 11, 2025
Parent Replies
While it's been a minute since my child graduated from Yu Ming, I served as a room parent on multiple occasions while they attended and volunteered on class field trips and for school events. I am not a Mandarin speaker, and that was never an issue. I really enjoyed the opportunity to engage with other parents and with the teachers, and get a glimpse into the students' days. The teachers I worked with as room parent were lovely and very grateful for parent assistance. When my child had homework in Mandarin, I was not able to help. I definitely turned to google translate a number of times to help understand instructions on HW papers. But it wasn't a barrier to education and there were always parents to reach out to to ask questions if necessary. There are many parents who have the same issue in reverse if English is not their native language. Against its been a few years now, but that was my experience.
My family doesn’t speak Mandarin and we are not of Chinese heritage. Our home language is English. All of the Chinese teachers speak English, too. There are also staff members who speak English.
Email communication to families are in English. ParentSquare is the app used. For non-English speakers, it has a language setting that can be changed easily.
You will be able to volunteer in the classroom and elsewhere on-campus as long as you submit the clearance requirements (negative TB test results and fingerprinting).