Recent experience of Francophone Charter School of Oakland
Seeking recent honest review for the quality of teaching, extra curricular activities and social and emotional development of students at Francophone? We currently have our child in Au Beau sejour in Oakland. I like the school but it’s expensive. The main attractiveness is the language component. Otherwise there are better school in my opinion for the same price in private elementary schools. The main attraction for us was to then be able to go to the Francophone Charter School in Oakland since it’s free! However I am now wondering how good this school really is compared to private schools like the Berkeley French School or Mills College Childrens School or the Renaissance International School? What about public elementary schools in Oakland like Hillcrest? What is the comparative quality of teaching, student to teacher ratio, focus on social and emotional development in the mentioned schools above? Would you put your child in Francophone - what are the drawbacks and pros and cons of the school? Thank you!
Parent Replies
We've had an overall very good experience at the school, very happy with the French skills our kids have acquired, really love the community of the school. It feels diverse, international, welcoming, and we've made some wonderful friends through Francophone. Quality of the teaching has generally been quite good. A few superstar teachers, a few OK teachers, but that might be the case anywhere? I think the big downside of Francophone compared to private schools or even many district schools is that as a charter they have to do more with less funding and they are pretty understaffed on the administrative/operations side and have had to deal with a lot of leadership turnover. Again, some of that is going to happen at most any newer school but there is a higher degree of uncertainty involved at a charter. For example there were discussions this year about whether or not it's feasible for the middle school component to continue long term, since many families go to Francophone for grades K-5 but depart for bigger middle schools for grades 6-8 (with things like sports teams, lots of clubs, more specialized electives, etc). All that said, we are very happy that we chose Francophone for a free, diverse, globally-focused language immersion education that we and our kids have really benefited from.