When St. Louis' first language immersion school opens its doors Aug. 17 in Forest Park Southeast, 180 kindergarten and first-grade students will begin their day with "
bonjour" or "
buenos días" and end it with "
au revoir" or "
adiós." In fact, their teachers will speak to them only
en français or
en español throughout the day.
Rhonda Broussard, St. Louis Language Immersion Schools founder and executive director, announced the opening of the charter school at a press conference and open house on Friday, Aug. 7. Two students welcomed the crowd in French and Spanish to the freshly renovated warehouse-turned-school at 4011 Papin. Former St. Louis Mayor and SLLIS board chair Vince Schoemehl and 17th Ward Alderman Joseph D. Roddy congratulated Broussard and her team.
The idea for the school began in 2006, when Broussard, who moved to St. Louis with her family from New York, was searching for a French immersion school for her toddler. When she learned that none existed in St. Louis, she began researching how to open one. Broussard joined forces with Schoemehl, who had already been promoting the idea of a language immersion school in St. Louis.
Broussard thanked the families of the students, noting that the children enrolled in the school represent all areas of St. Louis and all racial, language and socio-economic groups.
"When we started to work on this project three years ago, there were many folks in St. Louis who thought we were crazy, who thought, "You're not going to find families who want to do that here,'" Broussard said. "We are delighted to tell them that they were wrong."
The school, which offers the International Baccalaureate program, is the third immersion school in Missouri. The school plans to expand grades and add more languages in future years, and is already looking for a second location.
Recalling his own frustrations with trying to learn French while a student at the University of Missouri-St. Louis – the school's sponsor – Schoemehl stressed the importance of learning languages at a young age. "It just seemed to me an awful lot of work to be trying to do when you're in college when it becomes such a natural thing to learn when you're a young child," he said.
Schoemehl said that the school will not only teach children new languages, but allow them to "understand that they live in a world of full of people that are very much like them and very different from them, and teach them to really communicate in a way that will put St. Louis hopefully 25, 30 years from now in the delightful position of having a bunch of well-educated, internationally focused and articulate young people in the midst of our community."
Alderman Roddy read a proclamation from the city of St. Louis as well as a resolution from the Missouri House of Representatives on behalf of Rep. Rachel Storch commending the new language immersion school.
"I really feel we are on the cusp of something really big," Roddy said. "Just to think what it's going to be like 15 or 20 years from now, the hundreds of kids that will have come through here and will spoken new languages – and it all started today."
St. Louis Language Immersion Schools website
St. Louis Beacon article
Fox 2 video
Photos:
Above: Alderman Joe Roddy presents SLLIS founder and executive director Rhonda Broussard with a resolution.
Below, top: Rhonda Broussard conducts a tour of the new SLLIS building.
Below, bottom: A classroom at SLLIS awaits students.
