Santa Rosa French-American Charter School to drop 7th, 8th grades and expand K-6

Lauren Visconsi and her family left behind a life in Portland, Ore., four years ago when they heard about the opening of Santa Rosa French-American Charter School.

It was a big move, but they couldn’t pass up on a free, public language immersion program, especially after realizing it was too costly to send their four kids to a private French school.

“(It) was an incredible opportunity,” Visconsi said about the Santa Rosa school, which started nearly four years ago with 243 students.

Now, the school is looking at a big change. Struggling to accommodate the growing number of transitional kindergarten and kindergarten students and the decline in middle school enrollment, it will no longer accept seventh- and eighth-graders, a group that the neighboring Rincon Valley school district is welcoming for the coming year.

Attendance has more than doubled at the French-American Charter School since it opened in the fall 2012, Principal Pascal Stricher said. The school typically gets around 140 applications for kindergarten - dozens more than it can handle on the Sonoma Avenue campus, he said.

The growth wasn’t much of a surprise for Michelle Gervais, president of the parent association.

“You can’t get it anywhere else for free,” she said. “People pay tens of thousands of dollars to send their kids to programs like this in a private setting.”

While the growth has been “intense,” she said most parents find it positive. “They see more diversity, a broad base of support and a growing sense of community,” said Gervais, who has 7-year-old twins in the second grade. They’ve attended the school since kindergarten.

The school is running out of space, though.

School officials previously hoped to put in additional portable classrooms on campus, Gervais said. Those plans crumbled after the district learned the school sits atop the Rodgers Creek Fault.

School officials said there is no immediate danger to students and faculty, nor does the school need to be moved. But state law prohibits new construction on campus, including adding portables, officials said.

School officials initially were looking at moving the transitional kindergarten to another campus. In the end, they decided to keep the class on campus, offer three kindergarten classes instead of four and get rid of seventh and eighth grades.

Gervais said some parents were upset over the decision to cut the middle school program. They wanted to keep the children together on the same campus until they reached high school. In the end, she said, most of them were pleased to send their children to Rincon Valley.

“It’s a beautiful solution,” she said.

The French school first rolled out a seventh-grade class in 2014, drawing a dozen students. It then introduced an eighth-grade class last fall, combining it with the seventh grade.

There are currently eight students in the eighth grade and 19 in the seventh grade, according to the school district. The number of middle-schoolers was expected to drop to about 10 next year, said Anna-Maria Guzman, a Santa Rosa City Schools assistant superintendent.

Stricher said many families also are opting to send their seventh- and eighth-graders to more traditional middle schools that offer “lockers, cheerleaders and competitive sports.” The migration isn’t all that uncommon for charter and language immersion schools, he said.

“It’s very attractive what other schools are offering, especially on a social level,” said Stricher, who has spent two decades overseeing language immersion schools in North America.

The district is looking at offering a French program at one of its middle school campuses in the fall of 2017, Guzman said. No campus has been chosen.

Stricher said his school sent letters to parents before spring break, informing them of the decision to close the middle school and also held meetings.

“It was not really a surprise,” he said.

Visconsi, whose older daughter will be entering the eighth grade, said parents would have liked more time to look for middle schools to transfer their kids. Still, she doesn’t blame the school district for not finding a solution that would keep the kids together.

“We outgrew this space quicker than we could formulate the next step,” Visconsi said. “I cannot begrudge the district. They have an enormous amount on their plate.”

She and other parents reached out to Rincon Valley Union School District and found a favorable solution, with their children attending the charter program at the Sequoia campus in the fall.

Superintendent Tony Roehrick said the district will be hiring a teacher to lead the French program for at least the next year. Students will be able to take the class in lieu of their elective. It will be a content-rich course that could cover subjects such as literature and social studies, he said.

“It’s not the traditional foreign language class,” Roehrick said.

They’re also looking at holding a parent-led club before or after school, which will provide additional French instruction for the students, he said. So far, the Sequoia campus has enrolled 18 incoming seventh-graders and 15 eighth-graders from the French-American Charter School.

While Sequoia is a small campus with 180 students, Roehrick said it has much to offer middle-schoolers. The school offers a full competitive sports program, including volleyball, basketball and track. It also offers a variety of electives such as art, dance and Spanish.

“We got exactly what we were hoping for - a smaller learning environment and content-rich French,” Visconsi said. “The district lines are less meaningful for me as a parent. I just want my child to be in a good environment. That was accomplished.”

You can reach Staff Writer Eloísa Ruano González at 521-5458 or eloisa.gonzalez@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @eloisanews.