École Saint-Landry is a tuition-free, public, French immersion charter school, open to all children living anywhere in Saint Landry Parish. We first opened our doors to students in the 2021-2022 school year with only Kindergarten and 1st grade classes, and we are building one grade a year as we grow. In the 2023-2024 school year, we have 175 students in kindergarten to 3rd grade.
Our mission is to prepare students from the Acadiana region to be academically proficient, bilingual, and globally competent. Our school closes the gaps of academic achievement and supports the local community in their efforts to preserve and revitalize at-risk cultural assets by offering an innovative, research-based French immersion education to students. Borrowing from the motto of Hawai’i’s immersion program, KaʻUmeke Kāʻeo, École Saint-Landry is a school “inspired by our past, empowered by our identity, [and] prepared for our future.” We are dedicated to this motto in our continual efforts to play an important role in our community’s revitalization.
Our teachers are from France, Senegal, and Louisiana, and every subject is taught in French except for English Language Arts. Our administrators are Louisiana natives fluent in the French language.
The French language is such an important part of our Cajun and Creole heritage in Louisiana, and a major generator of tourism for our state. The vision of our school is that graduates of École Saint-Landry will be citizens who possess the knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors necessary to thrive in today's increasingly interconnected world. The students of École Saint-Landry will become cultural assets in their own right and will be ambassadors of global competency. Their successes will represent the effectiveness and power of biliteracy in our community and beyond.
We propose a school that, in addition to having a rigorous program guided by high expectations, is made unique by characteristics that are both shown to be beneficial to all students as well as craved by our community.
Our school is defined by the following differentiating pillars:
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French-Language Immersion: The use of an immersion language pathway gives students a rigorous academic training as well as both the intellectual and cultural benefits of bilingualism. Our school has partnerships with organizations such as the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana through which we will be able to recruit teachers who are native French speakers. This will support our language immersion program.
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Extra-Curricular Community Engagement: One of the central purposes of our use of a French-immersion program is to cultivate a strong sense of community among our stakeholders and within our school. We will reinforce this characteristic central to our school by engaging all of our students in extracurricular community service projects.
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Diverse Student Body: Our school is committed to having a socioeconomically and racially diverse student body. There is a large body of data demonstrating that socioeconomic and racial diversity is beneficial for all students and, in particular, at-risk students.
We are currently located in the former First Baptist Church of Sunset, which we have transformed into a bright and fun campus full of color and natural light. Our classrooms boast all the latest technology and our large, grassy lot is perfect for lots of outside play. Free bus transportation is offered to all students within Saint Landry Parish via satellite stops in every town.
Given the quality of schools currently available to our students and the cultural loss that our region is experiencing, we believe that our school provides a long-overdue service to both our students and to our larger community. We have been described as “a public school with a private school vibe” and we feel that fits us perfectly.
