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| Message
from Principal
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Statement | Immersion
Benefits | Program
Description | Highlights Academic Standings |
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Message from Dr. Brugger, MGIS Principal Willkommen an
der Milwaukee German Immersion School.
M.G.I.S. Mission Statement"Zweisprachigkeit" is our motto!Immersion Philosophy:An "immersion approach" to language learning makes bilingualism an attainable goal and provides exciting opportunities for children to gain deeper insights into themselves, other ways of thinking, and self expression. Since the children learn to cope and succeed in an unfamiliar environment, their verbal creativity and problem-solving skills are greatly enhanced.
Immersion Goals:Immersion students will be able to:
"We don't have any German ancestors in our family. Will we feel out of place?"
Many parents ask the same question when thinking about sending their child here. There are no special tests or requirements for entrance to our school. Children enroll in kindergarten or first grade with NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE OF GERMAN. From day 1 of kindergarten through 5th grade, children are taught reading, writing, math, social studies and science in German. Don't worry, your child WILL learn English. In 2nd grade, students begin to receive English reading instruction, which continues through 5th grade. Even though most instruction has been in German, our students consistently score very high on standardized tests. Parents do not need to know German for their children to succeed. Parents can still help with math, reading, English, etc. But just as important, parents can help by supporting their child's effort to learn and grow.
Milwaukee
German Immersion School is a 4-year old kindergarten through grade
5 elementary school founded by Milwaukee Public Schools in 1977.
We serve as a city-wide school to attract children from all
parts of Milwaukee with our innovative total language immersion program. Organization: We presently have three all-day 4-year old kindergartens, four
all-day 5-year old kindergartens, four first grades, four classes
each at second, three at third, and fourth grades, two fifth grades,
and four Special Education classes.
There are no tuition or transportation fees.
School hours are 9:00 a.m. - 3:40 p.m.
We offer on-site before and after-school childcare from 7 a.m.-6
p.m.
Recent Awards:
Student Body: We have approximately 560 students at K4-Grade 5, 35 of whom
are in Special Education programs.
We maintain a racially balanced school, with approximately
34% African-American students.
We are a city-wide program with students coming from all parts
of the city. 10% of our students are from suburbs. Faculty: There are 22 German Immersion classroom teachers, 4 Special
Education teachers, specialists in Reading, Music, and Physical Education,
a Literacy Coach / Program Implementor. Our Immersion teachers, assistants, Literacy
Coach / Implementor are totally bilingual. 50% of our Immersion staff are native speakers of German.
Facility: We are located adjacent to a park in a residential area on
the northwest side of Milwaukee.
Our building was constructed in 1958, and underwent a $2 million
expansion. We have 26 classrooms, gymnasium with
stage, private courtyard, lunchroom, kitchen to prepare lunches/breakfast,
and office suite. The
heart of our school is a 6,000 sq. ft. Instructional Media Center
encompassing the Library, Teacher Resource Center, Computer Lab, and
Reading Resource Center. We have Internet access throughout our
school in every classroom and in the Computer Lab. Admission Policies: Children are only accepted at the K4, K5 and Grade 1 levels
without any prior knowledge of German.
There are no special enrollment requirements for entrance into
our school at these levels. Applications are taken during a two-week
sign-up period in January. If
there are more applicants than there are openings, students are randomly
selected by computer lottery.
Non-selected students' names are placed on a waiting list for
the upcoming year. Admission
at Grades 2-5 is dependent upon the student's prior German/English
experiences and space availability.
Students may continue in the Grade 6-12 German Immersion Program
at Milwaukee School of Languages. For further information, please
contact Dr. Albert Brugger, Principal at (414) 393-5600.
MGIS HighlightsM.G.I.S. has a long and proud history of accomplishments. Aside from being one of the largest schools of its kind in the United States, it has been serving the greater Milwaukee community for over 20 years. In addition to achieving an overall level of academic success, the school has also been awarded numerous awards and honors. These include:
How
MGIS Came Into Being
The German Immersion Program began in Milwaukee in September 1977 with 99 students in K4-Grade 3 under the direction of Anthony Gradisnik, Foreign Language Curriculum Specialist of Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). In 1976, MPS lost a federal lawsuit filed by the NAACP that stated that schools that served the black population were systematically inferior to those that served the white population, and so MPS was put under court-ordered integration plans by Judge Reynolds. MPS and the City of Milwaukee did not want to experience the riots and upheavals that followed forced busing plans in the previous year(s) in some other American public school districts, such as Boston, who were under similar court orders. Thus, MPS chose a model of setting up a group of city-wide magnet schools with innovative programs to lure parents of both black and white students to integrate peacefully. With the court order also came federal magnet monies to establish these schools. The administrators in MPS were encouraged to develop innovative programs. Mr. Gradisnik had read about a French Immersion Program established in 1967 in St. Lambert, a suburb of Montreal, Quebec, and he was excited about the possibilities of duplicating that program model in an urban setting. He suggested that MPS start a German Immersion Program since the Milwaukee Metro area has such a large German heritage population. In 1976-77 Mr. Gradisnik began the planning to recruit teachers and students, and to find a school building and curricular materials. He headed a committee of distinguished community members, including Gerhard Rauscher, a professor of German, and Judge Kessler, to interview teacher and assistant candidates. They hired Helena Anderson to be the Program Implementor, who was in charge of "all things German." Helena Anderson Curtain has since been recognized as a leader in immersion education and works as a consultant all over the world assisting other countries in establishing immersion programs. They also hired the following teachers: Marianne Bonelli (K4, K5), Paula Finucane (Grade 1), Theresia Tarjan (Grade 2), and Barbara Camp-Griesser (Grade 3). Rosemarie Wolf was hired as the library assistant, and Gisela Drewitz and Barbara Zippel were hired as assistants. A summer workshop helped them to gel as a staff and develop the ideas and materials to begin the first day. The district identified a very small school, 68th Street School, on the northwest side of Milwaukee to be the site of the German Immersion Program. The official name was "68th Street Second Language Proficiency School." Frank Henke was assigned as the part-time principal. Federal magnet money was used to renovate the school to include some German décor including window boxes with geraniums and a sign on the front lawn that read "Deutsche Volksschule." Locating German teaching materials to implement an American curriculum to non-German speakers was the biggest challenge. Ordering from overseas was a minimum 6-month process involving requesting catalogs from publishers in Germany, sending orders overseas, waiting for bills to be mailed from the publishers, getting a foreign draft from the bank, mailing the foreign draft, and then waiting patiently for 4-8 weeks for the books to be sent by slow boat to save on shipping costs. German reading texts were used and modified as necessary. In the other curricular areas, many materials had to be created or translated. Finding students at the Kindergarten through third grade level was extremely challenging for this dedicated group. They recruited up until the last minute at German events in the community, went door-to-door distributing flyers, and even twisted the arms of friends to enroll their children. The feeling at that time was that while the St. Lambert experiment was successful, would it really be possible to instruct English-speaking children of all socio-economic levels in German in an urban setting? They began the first day very nervously with 99 students, not knowing exactly what to expect. After three days with little to no feedback from the parents, Ms. Anderson questioned one of the moms as to what her daughter had reported about school. The mom said that her little girl said she liked school but she was just a little confused about one thing: every afternoon as the teachers would put the children on the bus, they would wave good-bye and say, "Our feet are the same, our feet are the same." Of course, the staff was saying "Auf wiedersehen, auf wiedersehen." That story has become famous because it indicated that we were not traumatizing children by speaking to them in a foreign language! We owe a huge debt of thanks to the pioneer staff and parents who
were willing to dedicate themselves to giving the gift of language
to the children of Milwaukee! Vielen Dank! Updated on January 12, 2011 |
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The concept of a total early immersion second language program is based
on the following rationale:
"How will they learn to read English if they
only speak German at school?"
Curriculum: