After five years of growing the Piedmont Language School, Blair Paige will retire as Executive Director at the end of the school year. The PLS Board, students, and parents all thank her for her time, work, and dedication promoting world languages in Piedmont. We will miss her, and the PLS Board is now recruiting a new Executive Director for a smooth transition.
Almost 50 years ago, a group of Piedmont parents started the organization as they yearned to expose their children to world languages at a young age. Rather than wait for seventh grade or high school to learn a language at local schools, PLS has exposed young students to Chinese, Spanish, French, and Japanese over the years. The organization eventually grew to a size where we needed part-time staff.
PLS currently offers Mandarin and Spanish to local students in grades K-6 at Beach, Havens, Wildwood, PMS and Piedmont Community Church. The Spanish curriculum and teachers are overseen by Viva el Espanol; we taught 200+ kids the school year before the pandemic. Mandarin (simplified) is taught by local teachers who have been with our program for years and teach at many other schools in the greater community.
As with all schools, PLS was challenged by the pandemic. This year our Spanish classes have all be in person this academic year while Mandarin classes have been hybrid. We want to rebuild the coming school year and are excited to meet many new students.
Anyone interested in taking the reins to make sure these Chinese and Spanish classes continue to be offered in our community should email piedmontlanguageschool@gmail.com.