Ecole Bilingue De La Nouvelle-Orléans - New Orleans (LA)

5 /5 Omote Ekwotafia-Thélin: My daughter has not been at this school for a few years, but I still think fondly of it! EB offers a quality education and encourages critical thinking. Beyond that, the lunch options are amazing and their administration is organized in such a way that I can trust that they know what they are doing. When organization is done well it is easily missed, but it is so critical. When the pandemic hit, I was SO thankful we were at EB, because their response was immediate and thoughtful. Finally, every school could stand to be more diverse, but I appreciate that they know that and believe they make genuine efforts to increase diversity. If we were to move back to New Orleans, I would definitely return to EB!

5 /5 Sarah Griffin Thibodeaux: I took a chance on this school when my kids were a year old. I had twins so I needed two spaces in a day care and it was hard to find even one space. So I looked at academic year programs and this school—where they would change their diapers and speak French to them!—had two spaces. In the maternelle, my kids learned French songs, and in the elementary they learned cursive letterforms (adorable!). During the COVID years, they moved to online school overnight and taught my first graders how to read on remote meetings. Other schools shut down. In the later elementary, my kids struggled with homework and organization. There were tantrums in the fourth grade and we worked with the teachers and doubled down. Not every day was a pique-nique but the teachers and the community circled us with a love bigger than I could ever imagine. Every teacher in every grade knows my kid. Knows if he forgot his lunch or if he needs a mental health walk in the hall. The kids give presentations on Black History Month, dissect frogs, and walk through history a la francaise with the peasants and the nobles in the Middle Ages and on to revolution. Now in the middle school, the kids have six teachers and higher expectations. French Math and U.S. math are taught different curricula than U.S.A. but it all evens out by eighth grade and once in high school they place out of geometry and basic algebra. Some people give up on this school. But why? You get about 10 teachers watching out for your kid. Letting you know if the math homework didn’t make it out of the backpack that morning. Letting you know how your kid felt that day. Letting your kid bring his saxophone to music class to improvise. I didn’t even mention the exchange opportunities to Quebec and Paris. I couldn’t think of a better school to invest your children’s live in, and your own. Do it for them. For you.