[Editor's Note: Sarah Yang is an Albany resident who shared this story with Albany Patch. Her daughter, Alex, attends kindergarten at Yu Ming.] 

School mornings for Albany resident Erin Coyne begin by cajoling her 6-year-old out of bed at 6 a.m. to get her in the shower, dressed, fed and to the San Pablo Avenue bus stop by 7:15 a.m. to catch the 72R to downtown Oakland. 

Coyne's daughter, Myra, is a first-grader at a new public K-8 Mandarin-immersion school in Oakland Chinatown called Yu Ming Charter School, which begins its day at 8:15 and runs until 2:45 p.m.

Had Coyne, a UC Berkeley Ph.D. student in Slavic languages and literatures, chosen to leave Myra in one of Albany's highly regarded public schools, she could have gotten an extra hour of sleep. Yet Coyne and other Yu Ming families – including five from Albany – say they have chosen to make the trek because no other public school in northern Alameda County provides the opportunity to immerse their children in Chinese throughout the school day.

While Yu Ming is currently located in Oakland, some 63 percent of its students come from nearly a dozen other cities across the East Bay, including Berkeley, Alameda and El Cerrito.

A DIVERSE MIX OF STUDENTS

The Alameda County Board of Education unanimously approved the school's charter in November 2010. Less than a year later, doors at Yu Ming opened in August 2011 to a diverse mix of more than 100 kindergarten and first-grade students, including those who are white, Asian, African-America, Latino and many who are of mixed race.

At Yu Ming, 90 percent of the instruction is taught in Mandarin. A number of studies have shown that immersion is an effective model for language acquisition with benefits that extend beyond bilingualism, including improvements in subjects such as math and science.

"I won't lie; it can be really hard some mornings, but it's worth it," said Coyne, whose daughter already speaks English and Russian. "I'm a linguist, and my life is dedicated to language, so it makes sense that language would be a priority for me in terms of my daughter's education. And as a linguist, I am very familiar with the literature on the cognitive benefits of studying a second – or even third – language."

Dawn Williams Ferreira, another Yu Ming parent from Albany, shares the high value placed on early language-learning.

"I speak Spanish and French, and my husband speaks Portuguese and Arabic," said Ferreira, a Ph.D. student in education at UC Berkeley whose son, Phoenix, 5, attends kindergarten at Yu Ming. "Neither of us speaks Mandarin, but we value learning other languages and learning about other cultures. Phoenix has adjusted beautifully to Yu Ming and likes his school."

LANGUAGE STUDY HELPS STUDENTS SUCCEED IN LIFE

This value was also expressed in 2006 by the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Defense when the agencies identified the critical need for acquisition of world languages, such as Mandarin, to remain competitive in the new global economy.

About half of the students entering Yu Ming did not speak any Mandarin prior to the start of school. Five months later, students are now using Mandarin to sing songs, reply to teachers and write characters.

For Meng-Hsiung Kiang, who was born and raised in Taiwan and who earned her Ph.D. in electrical engineering at UC Berkeley, an immersion environment provided her best hope for advancing the Chinese that her 6-year-old daughter, Juliette, already knew.

"I speak only Mandarin to Juliette at all times, including when we are out with other people who may or may not understand Chinese," said Kiang, who has lived in Albany for nearly 10 years. "My husband and I knew about the after-school options both offered at the Albany public schools and a number of places in the neighborhood. In the end, we just felt that the immersion model was critical to keeping up Juliette's language proficiency, and will likely be a deciding factor of whether we successfully provide the type of education we want our daughter to have."

The start of Yu Ming reflects an increasing interest in language-immersion over the past decade. According to the Center for Applied Linguistics, there are now nearly 450 schools in the country that offer a foreign language immersion program, up from 50 in 1985 and 242 in 1997.

"We've heard parents express a variety of reasons for choosing a Mandarin-immersion school, ranging from building cultural awareness to enabling children to speak with their Chinese grandparents, as well as seeking a highly competitive education for their children," said Laura Ross, Yu Ming's principal. "Whatever the reasoning, embodied in our mission and public charter status is to provide the opportunity to students of all backgrounds, regardless of household income."

NOT THE EASIEST CHOICE, BUT WORTH IT, SAY PARENTS

"Sending Juliette to Yu Ming was definitely not an easy decision," added Kiang, who was heavily involved in getting the school off the ground and is now head of the school's Parent Advisory Group. "But I've been impressed with the quality of the teachers and the dedication of all the staff members, as well as the level of support for the school by the parent community overall." 

Yu Ming has been offering school tours and information sessions for parents interested in enrolling for the 2012-13 academic year. There is one last session, held 8:30-10 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 31,  before the Feb. 3 application deadline (enrollment information is online). 

In addition, from 9:45 a.m. to noon on Sunday, Jan. 29, during the 2012 Lunar New Year festivities on Solano Avenue, Yu Ming parents will be on hand to answer questions about the school at an information table near the Albany Twin Cinema.

Have an idea for a guest column about a subject you're passionate about? Email albany@patch.com.