HuaYi Education: Nurturing Academic Excellence and Cultural Identity in Plano
HuaYi Education is a Chinese school in Plano that provides supplemental education and after-school programs for many Asian students. Located at a shopping center at Legacy Drive and Independence Parkway in Plano, HuaYi Education has been offering a model of Chinese culture to children of Chinese immigrants since it opened four years ago in the back of a strip mall. The school was founded with the aim of keeping Chinese culture alive in Plano, which has a large Chinese population. HuaYi Education, formerly known as WY Edukids, has been a highly regarded after-school education center in Plano, TX, since 2002, offering stimulating and affordable programs.
Comprehensive Programs for Academic Enrichment
The after-school program focuses on advanced math, reading, and Mandarin Chinese language lessons for mostly Plano ISD students in kindergarten through fifth grade. In addition to academics, HuaYi Education also offers ping pong, basketball, and chess programs. The school provides supervised homework, lessons in Chinese language, math, reading, and chess programs. With a strong emphasis on critical thinking and academic skills, HuaYi Education offers a range of programs including supervised homework, Chinese language, math and analogies, and a renowned chess club. Students play chess at HuaYi Education, and teacher Ellen Pang gives a sticker to Johnny Yu after completing his school work. Ian Margolis completes a lesson at HuaYi Education, and students do school work.
Ji Qin, a fifth-grade instructor for the last three years, said she often teaches her 25 students sixth-grade math after they have completed their school homework. Rather than teaching for an hour, Qin’s lessons are condensed to a few demonstrations to help students understand the concepts. The rest is self-taught by the students, training them to learn on their own.
Fostering Cultural Identity and Language Proficiency
Principal Wen Yi emphasizes the importance of learning something after school, not just playing. Cindy Chian of Allen, originally from China, said it was important for the school to stress Chinese language education, along with advanced math and reading. She said the after-school program is supplementary to her 6-year-old daughter’s public school education at Allen ISD. While many children understand the language and can speak it at home, Qin said it’s important they learn to read and write it, too. "It’s our tradition," she said.
The Chinese language program is one of the school’s largest initiatives and the main draw for parents. Andy Shufer, a fifth-grader at Skaggs Elementary, said he travels back to China with his parents, both engineers, every other year to visit family. Shufer said it’s important for him to learn Chinese so he can understand the language when he visits China. “If I didn’t come here, I’d still learn Chinese, but I wouldn’t be very good at it,” he said.
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Meeting the Needs of a Growing Community
The school is among at least eight local Asian after-school programs to open following the surge of immigrants to the area in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Steve Sims, senior planner for demographics for the city of Plano, said the city’s Asian population grew by about 351 percent from 1990 to 2000. From 2000 to 2010, Plano’s Asian population doubled to comprise almost 17 percent of the city’s population, Sims said. He credited the growth to Plano ISD’s academic ratings and expanding employment opportunities in high-tech firms in West Plano’s Legacy business park. Sims said the city has worked to expand services such as recreation space for table tennis to accommodate the growing Asian population. Asian grocery stores like Asian World Market and Taj Grocers, which is in the same shopping center as HuaYi Education, stand alongside American chain supermarkets.
A Model of Success
HuaYi Education's approach to education has proven successful, with students like Sarah Luan, a fifth-grader at Mathews Elementary, excelling in their studies. Luan, who has attended HuaYi since third grade, said she began learning simplified fractions when she was 8 at the after-school program. Now, she’s practicing dividing and multiplying fractions. “School is easier for me because we learn things ahead,” said Luan. Qin said about one-third of her class participates in Plano ISD’s Math Rocks program for advanced math students.
Yi began teaching reading, math, and Chinese after school 12 years ago to a small group of first-generation Asian-American children out of her Plano home. Two years later, she opened QD Academy, another Chinese after-school program in Plano. Four years ago, she left to open HuaYi Education less than two miles west of the academy.
Affordable and Accessible Education
The cost to attend the after-school program averages about $300 a month, Yi said. There’s also a weekend class on Sundays for students who don’t attend the program every day. Oftentimes, families are waitlisted for about a year until their child can be placed in the program, Yi said. It is not a requirement that students be Asian to attend the school, she said, though more than about 90 percent are Chinese.
The Philosophy Behind HuaYi Education
Yi said the Chinese language program is one of the school’s largest initiatives and the main draw for parents. Principal Wen Yi teaches a class at HuaYi Education. Wen Yi, principal and founder of the school. “There’s a big population of Chinese in Plano,” said Wen Yi, principal and founder of the school. “That’s why we have to keep our culture alive.”
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“I know here in America, you think after school is just playing. That’s true - [kids] need play,” Yi said. “But we want the kids to learn something after school, not just play.” “If you understand the Asian family - it doesn’t matter if it’s Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Korean - they put education in the front. That’s just the culture,” Yi said. Before moving to the United States about 25 years ago, Yi was a teacher in China. In 1988, her husband’s job brought the couple and their two children from Omaha, Neb., to Plano.
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