At College Park every student receives a differentiated, standards based, academically enriched and challenging education in two languages, Mandarin and English.  Our community cares deeply about our community and environment with a commitment to reducing our carbon footprint and raising a generation of climate resilient leaders through our participation in the districts' Outdoor Education Program at Mission Springs, different campus driven greening initiatives, including our student Green Team, campus clean ups and gardens on campus.

The Mandarin immersion program was launched by a federal magnet grant in 2007 as a natural extension of the Mandarin elective classes that began in 2004.  Students learn Mandarin and English Language and Literacy through a thematic 50/50 Mandarin Immersion Program Model. This means that students learn to understand, speak, read, and write Mandarin 50% of their day through language arts, science and history/social studies, and the 50% of their day in English through language arts, math and history/social studies.  Physical Education, Art, Music are taught in English.  Our students in the Mandarin Immersion Program have one English teacher and one Mandarin teacher, and have access to materials in both languages.   

College Park also provides students whose families opt for a specialized Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program for San Mateo Foster City School District through the 2004-07 federal magnet school theme.  Students in our GATE Program have two teachers and both 4th and 5th grade are grouped for homeroom every morning.  One teacher teaches Math and Science, and the other focuses on Language Arts, History/Social Sciences and Mandarin as a World Language.  This year, we are integrating Mandarin as a World Language into the GATE Program to fulfill our vision of raising a generation of students across our school community who build an awareness and appreciation of other cultures and languages.  Our 4th and 5th Grade students in the GATE Program will receive a minimum of 75 minutes of Mandarin Language and Chinese Culture enrichment weekly and is NOT an immersion program model.   For more information on GATE visit the SMFCSD website.  For more information on World Languages in the Elementary Schools visit the California Department of Education Website.

Mandarin Immersion and GATE are natural, complementary programs at College Park.  Students apply critical thinking, problem solving and advance academic language and literacy development in both languages and across all disciplines while developing skills to be global and civic minded leaders.