New charter school to focus on foreign languages

Dec. 21—HIGH POINT — A proposed language-immersion charter school initially focused on Chinese and Spanish has gained state approval.

Organizers of the Triad International Studies Academy plan to open for the 2025-26 school year in the classroom building on the campus of Monument of Praise Ministries at 321 Oak View Drive. The building has 12 classrooms, and as enrollment grows the school will add modular classrooms, said Junlan Li, who will be the school's principal.

Chaowei Zhu, the chairman of the charter school's board and Wake Forest University assistant dean for global initiatives, has been involved with language-immersion schools in Charlotte and South Carolina, but he told the review board he left those in part because he wanted to try to some things that those schools were not doing.

"I have ideas," he said. "I have some better models."

Plans call for beginning with a total of 144 students in classes from kindergarten through second grade, then adding a grade each year through eighth grade, with a total eventual enrollment of more than 900 students.

Although the school would start off letting students choose language-immersion in either Mandarin Chinese or Spanish, starting with year three it may add French or German, depending on expressed interest, and in year five it may add Japanese or Korean, according to its application to the review board.

The application said the goal is to offer at least four languages, and it cited as the school's model the South Academy of International Languages, a magnet school in Charlotte that offers six languages.

The school also will offer "world culture" classes to educate students about cultures other than ones where the language they are learning is spoken, and starting from kindergarten it will offer leadership classes.

In the upper grades, students will get involved in activities around the High Point community, the application said.

The school also will have a dress code requiring tan, black or navy-blue pants and solid-colored, collared shirts that cannot have any logos larger than a business card.

Zhu told the N.C. Charter School Review Board that school officials intend to try to recruit many students from High Point's low-income and minority communities.

In her presentation to the board, Li mentioned High Point Market and the city's "global economic focus" as selling points that will help the school attract students.

The application similarly mentioned Market, then added, "The global business links have created a demand for a multilingual workforce."

School officials also have larger plans for at least one additional campus in Greensboro or Winston-Salem that could open for the 2030-31 school year, but they intend to keep operating the High Point campus, Li said.

"We want to use it forever, if possible," she said.