Ecole Bilingue De Berkeley

My son has been attending here for the past year after a few years in France. I’m pretty happy with the school and the biggest factor is that my son is always happy and has grown to be more confident. The staff and teachers are very loving and nurturing, and it begins to feel like a close knit community. My son is Asian and he feels very welcomed at this school, which is a bit different from our experience in France.
After school there is supervised care and while we didn’t utilize this much in the beginning, we use it everyday now, because my son simply adores it and it pleases me so much to see him happily playing when I come to pick him up. Kids are supervised by several adults, many who engage with them (instead of just watching them from afar), organize games, know your kids by name, and actively play amongst them. When there was smoke in the air one day, they took the children indoors to play. I love that I don’t have to worry about my child when he’s at school, because the staff truly care what’s best for the kids.
There are different activities for the children and some play on the playground, play basketball, skateboard, go to the reading corner under the canopy of trees, karaōke room, or the art center. In addition, they have several after school activities like piano, chess, fencing, violin, yoga, and many others. Next year, the playground is slated to double in size. For after school care, they also provide and buy only organic snacks, which is a huge plus! Usually fruit and some kind of cracker, etc. They also use Kidchow service for lunch, which serves organic and natural lunches. You can also pack your own.
As for academics, I’m very happy my son continues to build on his french (yes, he is bilingual now) and happy with his male teacher, who is also a great role model for my son. Overall, I’m blessed we found this school.

I used Ecole for two of my kids, and found it in the main a terrific school. Because the teachers are so unique, many of them French of course, they differ enough that every year there are some very individualistic approaches to learning. For me this is a relief from American schools that so often have a cookie cutter sort of atmosphere, no matter how independent the teachers try to be. The French system they use is pretty much total immersion, which again is a wonderful benefit in a country like the US with way too few languages represented. My kids were speaking French fluently within two years.
One star off for their less than wonderful playground. Still not enough grassy area, though they continue to have special gardening programs, so really it’s just the play area that bothers me. There’s plenty of play time, but just not quite enough of that spreading out on dirt/​grass that kids sometimes enjoy.

We found EB in a serendipitous conversation with another very satisfied parent, and have never looked back. It’s a wonderful community built around strong values. Students, faculty, administration and parents all generally seem to recognize how lucky we are to be a part of this group.
Class size is small and the student-​to-​teacher ratio is about 11 – 1 (I think.) Our son is in just his third year and is thriving from the personal attention, strong curriculum and the number of people who know him as an individual. It’s pretty heady stuff for a 6 year-​old. For me as a graduate of public schools in San Francisco, EB is almost a fantasyland of resources and well-​trained staff that are mindful and engaged and well-​supported in their efforts to educate our kids.
Neither my wife nor I speak French, and have not found that to be any barrier to enjoying or participating in school life. On the contrary, the broad cultural influences of the 50 nationalities represented by school parents is a wonderfully diverse mix of backgrounds, skills and interests that make it as engaging for parents as it does for the kids. We’ve found that beyond the obvious benefit of our son learning to speak idiomatic, unaccented French, his learning path is enhanced by understanding that there are many cultures in the world.
The obvious question with regards to choosing language is «why not Spanish or Cantonese?» From the contemporary perspective of business and immigration, that is the right question. But 20 years ago the drive was to educate kids in Japanese in preparation for a new generation of Japanese financial hegemony. We think that popular languages will come and go, but the skill of bilingualism or multilingualism will last a lifetime. EB isn’t just about acquiring French skills, it’s about preparing the mind to learn in many ways. If you think of it as a great private school that just happens to overlay French language skills, it’s a great bargain and opportunity.
Plus, they serve wine and cheese and the orientation nights for prospective parents. How can that combination be a bad thing?
Highly, highly recommended.

Well worth considering, especially if you start as early as Young Pre-​K, at age 3 or so. Worth continuing on in the French system for 9^th grade too (only in SF though) to complete the Diplome de Brevet. Great preparation all the way around, and friends for my daughter for life.

Our family loves EB! I am alumni of Ecole Bilingue, having attended K-​8^th grade, and my daughter is now in her first year at the school. The academic and cultural education that EB provides children with is world-​class. I am so happy and confident sending my daughter there because I know how prepared I was for all my subsequent education. The foundation I recieved from EB truly helped me make my way through high school, college, and law school with relative ease. And perhaps the best part about EB is the cultural competence it produces in children. I believe that students of EB can go anywhere in the world and acclimate proficiently. Another testament to the school is that each and every one of my former classmates there have turned out to be good people with great opportunities for success. Simply put, I have complete faith in EB!

My two kids attended Ecole Bilingue from pre-​kindergarten through 8^th grade, and come from a non-​French speaking background. Their mother and I chose the school because we wanted them to understand that the US is not necessarily the center of the universe, and learn about other cultures. They got an excellent education, and both were admitted to a respected private high school and highly ranked universities. The school is not suited to every child. If a student is having trouble with English, it’s probably not a good idea to throw a second language at him/​her. On the other hand, the school seems to have figured out how to teach well in both English and French. The early grades concentrate on French, and it is not until 4^th or 5^th grade that English is emphasized. Having said that, both of my kids did very well in English once they left EB. What I appreciated most about EB was the very strong sense of community. The mixed American/​Francophone parent group produced some of my closest friendships and, given the French emphasis on good food, parent potlucks were always worth attending.

Strong academic program? Check. Reputation for producing respectful, confident, and cosmopolitan critical thinkers? Check. Diversity up the wazoo? Double check. We currently have two ankle biters enrolled at EB (mid kindergarten and kindergarten) and they are thriving in this aforementioned nurturing environment. They LOVE going to school– how great is that?
For parent (s), you’ll find a variety of folks from all over the world, from different socioeconomic backgrounds, and with nearly every traditional/​nontraditional/​interracial mixture in between. Some families only speak english at home, some are bilingual, some are polyglots– but all the kids come out speaking beautiful french and english. As we live in an increasingly pressure filled world requiring tolerance and respect (n.b. TSA), EB delivers. You’ll find loads of parents participating in class projects, school related functions, fundraising, and some that choose not to participate at all… and it’s all good.
«Okay. They’ll be all worldly and bilingual. What about learning hard core science & math?» a bespectacled gentlewoman in the background asks. As a guy of science myself, let me simply say that I am not worried. It’s thorough, it’s rigorous, and I’ll leave it at that.
Downsides? Far and few in between. Facilities (ie, playground) need an upgrade, but the wheels are already in motion for a major upgrade in the next few years. Tuition is not for the faint of heart, but financial aid is available and the cost is similar to peer schools. In the end, around here, you get what you pay for. Finally, if only the school extended beyond 8^th grade, it would be as close as a Muggle school gets to Hogwarts.

Great School! I dont speak French at all. In only two years my son is already speaking, reading and singing in French! The school is a small community and everyone knows and supports each other. Apply early!

My son has gone here since kindergarten, which you have to do if you don’t speak fluent French. There are lots of Anglophone households, so you won’t be in the minority if you don’t speak French at home.
Why French? Well, everybody there has their own story, but mostly it seems to be because the school has an incredibly international flavor. There are over 60 native languages represented, and it has true diversity, so much of it that kids can’t polarize into the usual 3 or 4 ethnic groups they do anywhere else. More importantly, the French really believe in education and are passionate about pedagogy; this translates into an amazing program. In many classes, such as Math and Social Science/​History, he has them in both languages to take advantage of the better aspects of each system.
The education has been very good, and more importantly, my son has acquired a very cosmopolitan attitude, including tolerance of others’ differences. He speaks French like a native, and the couple of times we’ve been in France, they’ve taken him for a local kid. (and the girls think he’s sexy…) It’s helped him pick up bits of other languages very quickly, including a little Italian where we were there, and now that he’s in the middle school, Chinese. He eats everything, and I mean everything. Oysters, chicken feet, stinky cheese, uni…
The downside is that his grades are fairly mediocre because the level of the other students is so high. The upside is that he is surrounded by people who take education seriously. While I’m sure that he’ll experiment with all the same things that most kids do, it seems to be a bit delayed there; having 14 classes in 7^th grade keeps a guy too busy to be figuring out how to get high!;-)
They’ve got programs in the arts as well as encouraging students to take park in environment and community assistance volunteering. We’ll be sorry to leave.

OK, I’ll be the first.
I’ve been a parent of EB-​educated kids for 13 years. EB has taught my two children to be tolerant, good-​humoured, analytical, and patient. They speak French so well that natives don’t even realize they grew up in Berkeley and Oakland. Graduates get into just about any high school and college they want, and they will help change the world to be a better place. Not a whole lot else you could ask for from a school, I think. I’d send my children there again in a heart-​beat.