An Advanced Placement Mandarin Chinese program will be available next year, one year before the anticipated date of the program, according to a presentation at Tuesday night’s board meeting.

“Next year, we will be offering a Chinese Language Advanced Placement class,” Grant Administrator Marilyn Cook said. “We are a year early in developing the AP.”

Cook added that this early introduction of the AP Chinese class was made possible through the help of students.

“We would like to thanks students who gave up their summers in order to develop these programs,” Cook said. “Next year we will have 150 students in classes ranging from Chinese 1 to the Chinese Advanced Placement course.”

Cook was pleased with the development of the Chinese Advanced Placement course.

“It will be nice for our Mandarin Chinese students,” Cook said. “They will be able to take four years of Mandarin Chinese in three and take the advanced placement course.”

As for Mandarin course state standards, Cook noted that until now Palo Alto schools have been utilizing the Connecticut state standards for Mandarin Chinese. However, California has recently released its own set of Mandarin standards.

She added that the Palo Alto Unified School district will put together a task group to ensure that all California standards for Chinese are met.

The Advanced Placement Mandarin Chinese Language and Culture course will be available during the 2009-2010 school year.

For more information on the board meeting and the Mandarin program, click here.