The biggest part of what makes The Nest Academy so special is our amazing students! We have a lot of new students this year and we want to help you all get to know them! Over the next few months we will be sharing their stories and I’m sure you will come to love them as much as we do! Meet Thae & Myint Soe! Thae is in the 10th grade and Myint is in 5th grade here at the Nest.

Thae moved to the United States from Thailand when she was 8 years old. She learned English at school and taught her family. Her parents still don’t speak much English so she and Myint speak to each other in English, but they speak Thai to their parents. Thae has gone to public school since coming to the U.S., but she says she is so much happier since coming to the Nest. What makes the biggest difference to her is the smaller class sizes. She enjoys having all of her classes with the same group of students and she loves that everyone in the school knows each other. Thae says that it’s really special that her teachers here can give more individualized attention and go above & beyond to make sure that you don’t fall behind. She also loves being able to go to school with Myint and seeing him throughout the day. 

Myint was about 4 years old when his family came to the U.S. Since he was so young, he doesn’t remember much from his time in Thailand except for playing with his friends. He hasn’t been back to Thailand since moving here, but his parents hope they will be able to go visit for a month or so next year to spend time with their family and friends that they haven’t seen in several years. When they came to the U.S., Myint says it wasn’t very hard for him to adjust to the culture since he was so young. He learned English from his sister, Thae, and now he often takes on the responsibility of translating for his parents when they go out.

Myint remembers going to pre-K in Thailand and that the teachers would hit the students when they misbehaved, so he tried not to get in trouble very much. When he went to public school in Charlotte, there were a lot of behavioral problems in the classroom and other kids used a lot of inappropriate language, even in elementary school. Myint loves coming to school at the Nest because everyone speaks kindly and they all have a lot of fun together. He is the oldest student in our lower school class, but he enjoys it because he gets to be a leader & role model for his classmates and a helper to his teacher, Ms. Debbie. Myint is a little nervous to move into middle school next year, but he is glad that his old class will still be right next door and he hopes that sometimes he will be able to go back to visit Ms. Debbie’s class and be her assistant.