The tales my daughter tells about school everyday. “Mama! I was almost eaten by a sheep but saved by a buffalo in Mandarin class today!” A skit. She was talking about being in a skit. And when a friend struggled to hold up the sack in a potato sack race, “Treat it like it’s your underwear,” my daughter suggested, “if you make it a must, you won’t drop it!” That. Was PE.

Learning is play and problem-solving is fun for my daughter and, with her PA family, she’s at home. It’s not just the kids, it’s the grown-ups, too, as in staff and parents, everyone at PA just seems genuinely happy to be around each other. I’m talking let’s-coordinate-Halloween-costumes happy! Let’s-have-school-wide-weekend-playdates happy! It’s a whole different level of engagement. It’s infectious. It’s PA PRIDE. It’s modeling at its best, led by
superhuman principal Ms. Teresa. Preach and it likely goes out the other ear; model it and it imprints on my child forever.

If you’ve seen the PA curriculum, it’s academically intense. Yet, my daughter thinks it’s mostly fun and games, and is thriving on a healthy dosage of PA’s positive reinforcements, an audience of adoring teachers and supportive peers cheering for her. Of homework, she‘s generally nonchalant, “It’s like chores for you. I just do them.” And she does. Of testing, she actually looks forward to them, in the same way I imagine an athlete does competitions or a performer does showtimes. She shrugs off bad performances and beams with pride on good ones. I’ve yet to detect her feeling overwhelmed or pressured.
For anyone unfamiliar with the benefits of multilingual learning, PBL or individualized learning, I can’t recommend them enough. Those — integrated with SEL, arts and music — are curriculum ideals for me and
PA delivers them expertly.

Communication with school is near instantaneous. Feedback from teachers is with breadth and depth and, most impressively, with coordinated and targeted strategies on how they, as a teaching team, plan to continue supporting and challenging my child.

My daughter also loves the cooking and gardening classes offered in aftercare. That I no longer feel a need to supplement her learnings or chauffeur her around for enrichment classes is a huge relief. Would be nice
if she were to plow me a garden at home. Plenty of free dirt here. But, you know, I’ll keep finding the budget for her to plow that nurturing PA soil because the tales she tells of school are priceless.

~T. Nguyen (Parent)