French-American Charter School opens its doors

For a long time, the New York French-American Charter School was a school in name only.

Though the school had sufficient financial backing, official approval, and eager support from the Harlem Senegalese-American community, until late this summer they lacked one key ingredient: a location.

But last week the school finally opened its doors at 120th Street and Manhattan Avenue, in a recently closed day-care center—almost one year after gaining recognition from the Department of Education.

“We looked for a long, long time for space,” said Erika Dilday, a member of the school’s board of trustees, who participated in the location search.

“There were a lot of issues to work out, and we went down to the wire in getting them done,” Dilday, Journalism ’93, said. “We heard about the space toward the end of June, and the conversion process took a while.”

Preparing the school for classes wasn’t easy and included getting a new license to operate as a school, since the space was previously only licensed for community use for the day-care center.

“It was just things like making sure that we had exit signs in the appropriate places and appropriate fire alarms,” Dilday said of the various changes that the school had to implement.

Though the school plans to eventually expand to include a middle school and high school, it currently offers enrollment in grades K-2 only, with plans to add a grade each year.

By opening in a privately-owned building, the school avoided the controversy that often comes along with new charter schools which open inside of traditional public school buildings.

Board member and teacher Sochenda Samreth said that the school has been trying to clarify its role in the neighborhood with local residents.

Even though NYFACS is a public school, “We specified to all of the people that we would not be occupying a public space. A lot of them were puzzled by that, but it was not a threat. The school is free and open to everyone,” Samreth said.

Though Dilday praised the location, which is on a “charming, quiet little side street,” she admitted that, “I live around the corner from the place, and I’m not sure people even knew it existed.”

When the school was holding interest meetings for potential parents last year, parents made it clear that the charter school’s eventual location would play a large part in their decision to apply for spots at the school. Some parents were dismayed that the school was considering opening as far south as 96th Street, though the school’s founders say they had always made a commitment to Harlem.

But at least among the parents who thronged outside the school last week, the location seems to have worked out well, and the school has already become fairly well-known in the local Senegalese-American community.

“We were looking for a school in this district. This one had a vision and knew what they wanted to do, so we were impressed,” said a local parent who identified herself only as Nancy. “When I was a teenager living in France, I was embarrassed by how little I knew compared to my French friends. Their schooling was much more intensive than the schooling I’d had. I just want my kid to have a good experience.”

“I’ve known about the project for about a year,” said Michelle Gabriel Sidibe, another parent. “I was waiting for them to find a spot so I could send my daughter here. I came all the way from the East Side. People are coming from Brooklyn and Queens—from all over. That’s how much the school means to all of us.”

“It was almost like winning the lotto, since it’s the first French-American charter school open in NYC,” said Mili Simon, a parent of one of the school’s attendees. “Hopefully, if more people know about the school, they can open more grades.”

For Sidibe and Simon, the school’s policy of teaching most classes in French is its most appealing feature.

Other parents are drawn to the school’s pledge to combine the best of the French and American educational systems. This method is meant to prepare students for both the Regents, which are standardized state exams, and the International Baccalaureate exams, while lending a distinctly Gallic rigor to the traditional American educational experience.
And though it’s still early, parents say the early returns are promising.

“When my five-year-old came up to me the other day, she smiled and counted to five in French,” Sidibe said.