Lone Peak Elementary established their Chinese Immersion Program during the 2009 – 2010 school year with 50 students. Since then we have added 56 more students each year and currently have Chinese Immersion classrooms in first, second, third, fourth, and fifth grades. Roughly 270 students of our 700 student body is participating in our immersion program. We have found a tremendous amount of success and are very proud of what our students have accomplished over the last few years. School officials from all over the United States as well as officials from France, Korea, the Fiji Islands, and many other locations have traveled here to see what we accomplishing each day. We have also had local reporters, The New York Times, and Time Magazine here to do stories on our program and immersion in general. Our teachers truly have made this program one worth celebrating.
Application Process / Frequent Questions
Who Can Participate?: Admittance into the immersion program here at Lone Peak and throughout Canyons District is done through a lottery system managed by Canyons School District. Students enter into the immersion program in 1st grade and remain in the program here at Lone Peak through 5th grade. Your child will then continue participating in the dual language program in middle school.
Application Process and District Website: Each year, the application window typically opens at the end of September and typically closes the third week of November. After the application window closes, Canyons School District will continue to accept late applications which will be placed on a wait list. Please visit https://dual.canyonsdistrict.org/ for the most up-to-date information or to apply for the program.
Lottery: School and district personnel will determine the number of spaces that will be available for in-boundary students, as well as spaces for out-of-boundary students. The number of spaces available in each category is based on the school’s enrollment capacity and may be different at each school, depending on the needs of the school to maintain the traditional and dual immersion programs. In the lottery process, special consideration will be given to:
- Students with a sibling already in the DI program.
- Students with parents that work on staff at the DI school.
- Students that speak, read and write the target language at an appropriate level of proficiency (as determined by a proficiency screening).
- Students who are transferring from an out-of-district comparable dual language immersion program.
Right for My Child?: This is a decision that needs to be made within your family and done for each child. Although this program may be perfect for one of your children, it may not be the best for your other child. Consider each child individually and speak to his/her kindergarten teacher. However, dual language immersion programs may not be an appropriate educational option for children experiencing significant communication delays in their primary language.
Typical Immersion Day:
Grades 1 – 3:
- Students in grades 1-3 spend half of their day studying math, Chinese literacy and other content areas in their target language of Chinese. They spend the other half of their day studying language arts, and receiving math reinforcement, as well as studying the other content areas listed above in English.
Grades 4 & 5:
- Students in grades 4 and 5 spend half of their day studying Chinese literacy, science, and receive math reinforcement, as well as studying the other content areas in their target language of Chinese. They spend the other half of their day studying math, language arts, and social studies in English and also receive instruction in other content areas.
Visit http://www.utahdli.org/ for more information about curriculum and the Dual Language Immersion learning model.
