Enrollment has tripled at All Souls School, the first full immersion school in the Los Angeles Archdiocese that opened its doors last year. In 2012-13, 20 students (kindergartners and first graders) were enrolled in the dual-track school. This year, 61 students are attending the Alhambra school, expanded to include a second grade and transitional kindergarten (the latter welcomes 3¬Ω to 4¬Ω-year-olds to the two-year kindergarten program). All Souls offers separate tracks in Spanish and English as well as Mandarin Chinese and English. Parents select which track their child will follow through the course of their schooling at All Souls.Other changes have taken place at the school over the summer. Principal Carrie Fuller succeeds Anne Bouvet, a long-time educator who came out of retirement to get the school operational in its inaugural year. “I’m just thrilled to be here in a great creative place and blessed with super talented teachers,” says Fuller. “We know we are building something special here.”Fuller taught in Catholic schools in San Diego for six years before heading to Boston to teach university students. She was also a doctoral student researching dual language Catholic schools.All Souls is one of only 20 Catholic schools in the U.S. offering dual language immersion. Most students come from Alhambra, Pasadena and San Gabriel, but other families are commuting from Lincoln Heights, Monterey Park, Highland Park and even Claremont.Fuller is also impressed with the active parents’ organization and school board. One big current project is to install school community gardens (large planting boxes) on campus. “The outpouring of parental support is wonderful,” she says.The biggest challenge right now, says Fuller, is to understand that the dual language curriculum can be very complex and student specific. For example, some students, she says, speak Mandarin at home, but probably have never seen it in written form. “We are testing the children to see where they are with language, so the instruction can be very individualized.”{gallery width=100 height=100}gallery/2013/0913/sgallsouls/{/gallery}
