Amity Welcomes Language Lesson Opportunity

Following is a letter from Supt. John Brady regarding an opportunity to learn a foreign language using the Rosetta Stone system.

 A fundamental responsibility of the Amity Regional School District is to provide a variety of learning opportunities and experiences for our students. To that end, we are participating with the Bethany, Woodbridge, and Orange school systems to assist you in providing a low cost world language learning opportunity for your child.

During the 2010/2011 school year, nearly 90 students and staff members from the BOWA school districts enrolled in the Rosetta Stone online program. Recent feedback about the initiative was positive so we intend to offer this opportunity again.

While our core curriculum is sound and comprehensive in its scope, we know that parents continually seek ways to expand and supplement it. The Board of Education would like to once again provide parents an opportunity, at a very reasonable cost, to supplement or expand their child’s world language education by offering a home-based foreign language program.

Rosetta Stone is an online program where the users are able to access the web-based software at home, as well as at school. Users can select from 25 languages.

Arabic

Chinese (Mandarin)

Dutch

English (American)

English (British)

Filipino (Tagalog)

French

German

Greek

Hebrew

Hindi

Irish

Italian

Japanese

Korean

Latin

Persian (Farsi)

Polish

Portugese (Brazil)

Russian

Spanish (Latin America)

Spanish (Spain)

Swedish

Turkish

Vietnamese

With the school district is serving as the program administrator, an Annual Subscription provides access to the website that is active for 12 months. The site provides all languages (listed on the reverse side of this letter) and levels. The program is self-paced. 

To be eligible to participate, your child must be enrolled in the Amity Regional School District. A minimum of 25 students must be enrolled in order for the BOWA districts to participate and receive the special pricing.

Each license costs $109. Once there are 100 students registered, the price drops to $89. Each user may only choose one language to study during the 12 month period of time.

In order to assist us in reaching the 100-student threshold, Rosetta Stone has permitted the BOWA school districts to be considered as one region. Licenses can be added during the lifetime of the 12 month period at a prorated cost. If the student participation threshold is reached, adults (parents, faculty and staff) will be allowed to enroll.

It is our intention to register students with Rosetta Stone on/before June 15, 2011, so students have the summer and the entire 2011/2012 school year to participate.

Until we can determine the level of interest and commitment to registering students in the Rosetta Stone program, the cost of the license cannot be determined. When we receive all of the registration information and have an accurate count of participants, the cost will be known and you will contacted. Do not submit any payment at this time.

To register your child to participate in the Rosetta Stone program, please provide the following information:   Parent Name and Address; Student Name; Grade (2011/2012); Parent Email Address; a Telephone Number you can be reached at during the day, and the language selected.

E-mail the registration information to Debra Reynolds at debra.reynolds@reg5.k12.ct.us  by Wednesday, May 25. You also may mail or bring that information to the Amity District Office.

For additional information about Rosetta Stone, visit their website at www.rosettastone.com.