What happens after 8 years of Language Immersion?

We are strongly considering enrolling our child into one of the local Foreign Language Immersion schools for Kindergarten. We are excited about the prospect of having a bilingual child for cultural, cognitive and other reasons, but are uncertain about what will become of the language once they are in high school, with no local ''Immersion'' high school options. Did your child go through an immersion K-8? Was having that 2nd language useful in a practical sense after they attended high school/college? Any strategies for retaining a language if we (parents) are not speakers of that 2nd language? Do high schools offer advanced language classes to support kids that had K-8 immersion?? Any advice or anecdotes appreciated. Thanks! Language mom

There were unanticipated side effects of the French-American system: math was taught using different techniques and definitions (so much for math being a universal language), creating some confusion and making it hard for parents to help with homework; math word problems were sometimes hard for the wrong reason, using everyday French expressions that an American child wouldn't have encountered (e.g. a problem about gas mileage using the equivalent of ''fill her up with high octane''); and even in 8th grade, the American students I knew couldn't express themselves well enough in writing to learn principles of good composition in French. Because of differences in the curriculum, she had to work extra hard in 9th grade in English and Science, but caught up after one tough semester.

Entering high school, she was offered the option of either French 3 or 4. To this day, she's convinced that she made the right choice with 3 because she needed a solid grammar review (and a few peers went into French 2). With immersion she had confused verb forms that have the same sound but different spellings, and she often didn't know the reasons behind the grammar she heard. She took French 3, 4, and 5, aced both French AP's and the French SAT. She had a native speaker teacher one or two of those years, and no French her senior year. In college she minored in French and spent a term in Paris. By then, her accent had lost something, but still impressed the French. They wouldn't have mistaken her for a native speaker, but could've sworn that her mother was French (her surname is English) or that she lived in France as a young child. She describes herself as fluent, but not bilingual, and was able to use the language in an internship in France after college graduation, If the opportunity ever arises for her to use French in her work, she would do very well. As an adult, she appreciates having had the opportunity to learn a second language when she was young, though it was not without its trade-offs and difficulties. une maman americaine