Academics

Welcome to Francophone — 2026–2027 School Year

August 13, 2026 · By Sergio Bernales

Dear parents and families,

On behalf of the staff at Francophone Charter School of Oakland, welcome to the 2026–2027 school year! Whether you have a new Kindergartener, a new Transitional Kindergartener, or a new or returning student in grades 1 through 8, we are thrilled to have you in our community.

We understand that starting at a new school or starting a new school year can be overwhelming at first, so please know that we are here to help. The purpose of the information on the following pages is to make the transition easier. Please note that this document is based on past needs, feedback, and requests from families and staff. We have also included a fair amount of logistical information related to our new campus, particularly about arrival and dismissal. We appreciate your flexibility as we adapt to our new school site!

As a school team, we are committed to the success of your child and each and every one of our students. We ask that you guide and support your child’s learning and the advancement of our school’s mission by ensuring that they:

Attend school daily and arrive on time, ready for learning in community
Listen to and show respect to teachers, staff, and peers
Read daily (alone or with others!) to foster bi-literacy (or tri-literacy, in many cases!)
Embrace the challenge of learning one or more new languages
Identify a trusted adult at school to assist them in problem solving, when necessary

Our school values are respect, excellence, belonging, joie de vivre (joy), and integrity. We use positive behavior support with an emphasis on teaching and reinforcing behavior that is conducive to learning.

Please join us for one of our back-to-school events to help your student get familiarized with our new campus:

TK Welcome Day on Monday, August 17th — all details linked here
K–2nd Grade Open House from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm on Friday, August 14th
3rd–5th Grade Open House from 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm on Friday, August 14th
Middle School (6th–8th Grade) Open House from 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm on Friday, August 14th

The open houses for grades K–8 are informal events where you will be able to drop into your child’s classroom any time during the window and meet their teacher.

The wonderful, global, dedicated Francophone staff and I are honored to welcome you, or welcome you back, to our community!

We thank you for your support and look forward to an outstanding school year.

Christophe Viret, Principal
Pronouns: he/him/his
cviret@francophoneschool.org

Bell Schedule

With the move to our new campus, we have updated our Bell Schedule. This document lists arrival, dismissal, lunch and recess times for all grades. Please find it linked here.

Arriving to School

Specific instructions for arrival to school depend on whether the students you are dropping off all attend school on the Lower Campus side of the street (grades TK–2), all attend school on the Upper Campus side of the street (grades 3–8), or attend school on both sides. Please find instructions for each case below.

All students I’m dropping off attend the Lower Campus (TK–2) side

2430 Coolidge Avenue, Oakland CA 94601

On-time arrival occurs from 8:00 am to 8:15 am for 1st and 2nd Grade, and 8:15 am to 8:30 am for Transitional Kindergarten and Kindergarten. During this entire time window (8:00 am – 8:30 am), we will be having a rolling drop-off:

Please drive up to the part of Coolidge Avenue marked by orange cones that is on the Lower Campus (east) side of the road. Parents dropping off Lower Campus students only must drop off on the Lower Campus side of the street. This avoids having young students cross the road, which is a major safety risk.
A member of the school staff will assist your student in getting out of the car and walking to class. For the first few weeks of school, Transitional Kindergarten and Kindergarten teachers will wait on the grass right in front of the rolling drop-off area, so students will be accompanied by an Instructional Aide to walk the short distance from cars to their teacher on the lawn rather than walking all the way to class.
If you have students in both TK/K and 1st/2nd Grade, please drop all students off before 8:15 am. Our staff will assist the 1st or 2nd Grader in getting to class on time, and will help the TK/K student walk to Before Care, even if they are not signed up for BASC.
Once your student leaves the car, please carefully pull out and continue driving north on Coolidge Avenue. We cannot allow any u-turns within three blocks of campus for safety reasons.
If you have a 1st or 2nd Grade student and you arrive after 8:15 am, please proceed with rolling drop-off as described above. A member of the school staff will assist your student with walking to the office and getting a tardy slip before heading to class.
Rolling drop-off ends at 8:30 am. If you arrive after that time, please park on Coolidge Avenue and walk your student to the front office to obtain a tardy slip. Once your student is at the front office, a member of the school staff will help them walk to class.

If you have signed your child up for Before and After School Care, you may drop your child off for Before Care from 7:30 am to 8:00 am. Please park in the designated park-and-walk spots that will be marked by green cones on Coolidge Avenue in front of campus and walk your child to our Before Care space (Portable 302). School staff will be present to guide you.

Please allow extra time on the first day of school. Please walk bikes and supervise your children. No animal friends, except service dogs, please.

All students I’m dropping off attend the Upper Campus (Grades 3–8) side

2365 Coolidge Avenue, Oakland CA 94601

On-time arrival occurs from 8:00 am to 8:15 am for 3rd through 8th Grade. During this time window, we will be having a rolling drop-off:

Please drive up to the part of Coolidge Avenue marked by orange cones that is on the Upper Campus (west) side of the road. Parents dropping off Upper Campus students only must drop off on the Upper Campus side of the street. This avoids having students cross the road, which is a major safety risk.
Once your student leaves the car, please carefully pull out and continue driving south on Coolidge Avenue. We cannot allow any u-turns within three blocks of campus for safety reasons.
Rolling drop-off ends at 8:15 am. If you arrive after that time, please park on Coolidge Avenue and walk your student to the front office to obtain a tardy slip. Once your student is at the front office, a member of the school staff will help them walk to class.

If you have signed your child up for Before and After School Care, you may drop your child off for Before Care (7:30 am – 8:00 am). Please park in the designated park-and-walk spots that will be marked by green cones on Coolidge Avenue in front of Upper Campus and walk your child to our Cafeteria for Before Care. School staff will be present to guide you.

Please allow extra time on the first day of school. Please walk bikes and supervise your children. No animal friends, except service dogs, please.

Some students on the Lower Campus side (TK–2), some on the Upper Campus side (3–8)

You may drop all of the students off on either side of the road. Our crossing guard, Ms. Sabrina, will help students cross to the correct side. Please follow the drop-off procedures described above depending on the side that you choose.

Please find a map summarizing our traffic flow for drop-off linked here.

Picking Up Your Child on the First Day of School

The first day of school, Wednesday, August 19th, is a minimum day. Before and After School Care will also not be running on this day to help students ease into the school year. To avoid major traffic associated with having all students picked up at the same time, we will exceptionally operate a staggered pick-up schedule:

1:05 pm – 1:15 pm: TK students and their older siblings (ready on the lawn in front of Lower Campus, 2430 Coolidge Avenue)
1:15 pm – 1:25 pm: Kindergarten students and their older siblings (lawn in front of Lower Campus, 2430 Coolidge Avenue)
1:25 pm – 1:35 pm: 1st and 2nd students not yet picked up and their older siblings (lawn in front of Lower Campus, 2430 Coolidge Avenue)
1:35 pm – 1:45 pm: Upper Campus students not yet picked up, with their younger siblings (Upper Campus blacktop, 2365 Coolidge Avenue)

We will operate on a park-and-walk system for pick-up. Please park on any available spot on Coolidge Avenue and walk to pick your child up. There is also a small lot at Peralta Hacienda Park (2465 34th Avenue, Oakland CA 94601) available for additional parking.

Picking your child up on the first day of school will take a lot of time. You will need to check out your child from their homeroom teacher. Teachers will check identification to ensure you are on the authorized contact list. Please allow staff to complete this process for your child’s safety.

Starting on Thursday, August 20th, pick-up will occur between 2:35 pm and 2:45 pm for all students. There will not be staggered pick-up.

After-School Care will be in session for students in grades 1–8 starting Thursday, August 20th. After-School Care will begin for TK students on Monday, August 24th.

What to Bring

Water: labeled water bottle
Snack: no sharing, no nuts, no candy — in a labeled container
If not yet done, deliver medications to the front office — details below
Plan for the end of day: tell your child and their teacher who is picking them up, since there is no after care on the first day of school
Lunch: students can bring a labeled lunch box with a nutritious, nut-free, candy-free lunch, or receive school-provided lunch. There is no fridge or microwave for students.
Hat/sunscreen applied at home if desired

Allergies and Medications

Please inform us of allergy and medication needs via email at contact@francophoneschool.org.

Please drop off medications with clear, current prescription labels or information at the front office at the correct campus before the first day of school. In addition, please review, complete, and submit to the office the Medication Authorization Forms: Authorization for Medication (FCSO) and Authorization for Medication – Additional Instructions from Parent(s).

School Lunch & Meals

Breakfast and lunch are available for free for all students. Our school lunch vendor is The LunchMaster. We are operating under California’s Universal Status law, which allows all students to receive meals free for the entirety of the school year. However, our school relies on families completing the Universal Benefits Application for educational funding throughout the year. Therefore, it would be helpful for all families (including families of students who do not qualify for Free-and-Reduced Price Lunch and families who bring their own lunch) to complete the online form linked here. Regardless of your income, we need 100% of Francophone families to fill out the form.

Please visit our website’s meals page.

Food Allergies

We are a nut-free school. Please never send or bring to school any product containing tree nuts or peanuts. This includes things like peanut butter cookies, Nutella, certain granola bars, etc.

School Celebrations and Allergies: Each year, we have a range of food allergies present among our students. We need everyone’s support to make our school truly inclusive and safe for students with allergies. We maintain a list of suitable food for each classroom based on the students, allergies, and food restrictions that particular year. As soon as the final 2026–2027 list of food restrictions by classroom is ready, we will share it with parents. This way, teachers who choose to do birthday celebrations with food have an easy reference about what food can be enjoyed by all the students in the class. Classroom celebrations such as birthdays are organized at teachers’ discretion.

School Meals and Allergies: Every school day, we provide a meat and vegetarian option for your child’s school lunch. If your new or returning student has a food allergy or dietary need, please complete the Medical Statement for Meal Modification form with a doctor’s signature and submit it to Michelle at mchau@francophoneschool.org. As soon as this document is on file, we will begin ordering meals that fit your child’s dietary needs. Visit our new vendor website, theLunchMaster.com, for more about what they offer, and reach out to Michelle with specific questions about school meals.

Attendance

Attendance: Our attendance goal for this year is to maintain the 95% attendance rate that we achieved last year! We can do it! Please make every effort to send your students to school every day. This is extremely important for their learning and academic performance, and also for their socio-emotional development. Attendance is one way in which students learn about discipline, consistency, and responsibility. In addition, the funding for public schools depends on the number of students attending school each day.

Absences: If your child needs to miss school, please email contact@francophoneschool.org by the start of the school day, and cc your child’s homeroom teacher. Class lists will be sent on ParentSquare before Monday, August 17th.

Late arrival: Please bring your student to the front office to pick up a tardy slip before going to the classroom. Do not drop your child off after 8:30 am at Lower Campus or after 8:15 am at Upper Campus and allow them to go in on their own. This leaves open the possibility that the teacher marks them absent at the start of instruction and that the child never makes it to class, and we do not discover a lost child until the office staff calls home.

Early departure: If your child needs to be picked up early, please email the office and teacher in advance. You will need to go to the front office to sign out the student. One of the office staff will call your child’s teacher and ask for the child to be sent to the office. Please do not go directly to your child’s classroom. Plan to arrive in the office 5–10 minutes before you need to leave to provide ample time for staff to transition your child from class.

Please note that early departures within 35 minutes of the end of the school day cannot be accommodated, as the office team is at that time preparing for dismissal and the transition to after care. If you need to pick up your child early, please do so before 2:00 pm.

ParentSquare

The school’s official application for communication is called ParentSquare. Families with an enrolled student can create an account to access all the features. There is usually a period of a few weeks at the start of the school year before new families are able to log in, so please allow for that. Families will receive communication from the school when their ParentSquare accounts are ready. Once you’re in ParentSquare, you’ll want to look for:

Account creation: when you have an account, you can read posts for the whole school, your child’s class, and join committees.
Weekly Updates for Francophone Families: the Principal and your child’s French and English teachers send weekly updates with information about events, cultural themes, community resources, news, etc.
Calendar: you can subscribe to or bookmark the school calendar, whose events can be found on the school website and on ParentSquare.
Directory: families choose what information they want to share. We suggest sharing your name, email, and student name to help you connect with other families.
Messaging: you can send messages to other families and to teachers.

Class Assignments

Students’ class assignments will be communicated via email and ParentSquare by Monday, August 17th.

We strive to make classes heterogeneous in every way. This allows students to learn in a community that reflects the world and the city around them. For returning students, we collect teachers’ input from the prior year to make the classes balanced and to help each student find a familiar face, a trusted peer, or a productive friend in their new classroom. For new students, we balance classes largely by demographic information collected during registration.

When creating class groupings, the teachers and administration work together closely and consider several factors, including demographics, academics, French language proficiency, English language proficiency, strengths and interests, and needs (including but not limited to speech, health, academics, behavior, and self-regulation).

We use all of this information to plan the most balanced classes possible. It requires extensive time, thought, and collaboration. Requests for specific teachers, although well intended and seemingly harmless, are not able to be accommodated. We appreciate your support in this process.

School Supplies

Please find lists of suggested school supply donations linked here. All donations on this list are totally optional. If you are able to bring some, the TK Welcome Day (Monday, August 17th) or K–8 Open Houses (Friday, August 14th) are the perfect times to bring them. Thank you in advance!

Arrival and Dismissal Safety

No matter how you get to school, please:

Allow plenty of time and follow all signs.
Always drive in the direction of traffic.
Drive or ride slowly and carefully.
Never park in or block our neighbors’ driveways, even for a moment.
While we welcome families on the yard, if you need to enter the building, please check in at the front office with the office manager to state your purpose and obtain a visitor’s badge.
Walk your bike on campus.
Once you drop off your child to the teacher, the teacher will supervise.
Once you pick up your child from the teacher, you are supervising. Please keep them with you and do not allow them to climb on the play structure, throw objects, or run in areas where elderly or young people need to walk.
Do not bring pet dogs or other animals to arrival or dismissal, to keep things orderly and to allow service dogs to work without distraction.

How to Get Involved

Family volunteerism is thought to advance student learning and well-being at school. Please consider volunteering in a way that is suitable for you and your family. We seek volunteers to help us with the following activities:

FCSC (parent organization) committees
Room parents, grades TK–5
Crossing guard support in the mornings. If you are interested and able to volunteer at least one day a week from 8:00–8:30, please reach out to me at cviret@francophoneschool.org.
One-time events (e.g. Science Fair or field trip chaperone)
Yearbook photography

Classroom teachers request volunteers at their own discretion. Common “asks” are help organizing, decorating, or providing a read-aloud or artifact share in the classroom to represent your family’s identity/identities, celebrating the cultural diversity of our community. FCSC is always looking for chairs and volunteers for school events. Email fcsc@francophoneschool.org for more information, or share your interest now and we’ll contact you when plans are in place. In grades TK–5, your homeroom teacher will send out classroom volunteer opportunities based on their needs and the class’s programs.

Welcome Events

As you begin your journey at FCSO, we encourage you to attend these events to meet and greet the leadership, administrators, and other Francophone families:

Friday, August 14th, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm: K–2 Students’ Open House
Friday, August 14th, 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm: 3rd–5th Grade Students’ Open House
Friday, August 14th, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm: Middle School Students’ Open House
Monday, August 17th: TK Welcome Day!
Wednesday, August 19th: First Day of School
Monday, August 31st, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm: Grades TK–2 Back-to-School Night
Tuesday, September 1st, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm: Grades 3–8 Back-to-School Night
Wednesday, September 30th: Lower Campus Picture Day
Friday, October 2nd: Upper Campus Picture Day

Words of Advice

It is understandable for children and parents to experience some anxiety about starting school. Here are some tips to help students have a successful first day:

Start school bedtime and wake-up time about a week before school begins. Children’s body clocks need time to adjust. Being well rested will help make their first day more relaxed.
Have clothes picked out the night before to help the morning go smoothly. Allow them to pick out the outfit — they do need to wear shoes that are safe to run in.
Try not to put too much pressure on the first day (lots of pictures, rushing, intense adult emotions, special breakfast, etc.). Those things can make kids feel more anxious. Keep it simple.
Say your goodbyes at the class line and be strong. When a parent lingers or cries, it can make kids feel more anxious. When they see you at ease and saying goodbye briefly, it helps them feel more comfortable.

If your child starts to feel anxious or cry:

Offer simple reassurances: “Your teacher is a good teacher — if you need something, just ask them. I am proud of you for going to school; it’s normal to be nervous, but our family does hard things, so I know you can do this!”
Say a cheerful, short goodbye and leave. Don’t show hesitation; your uncertainty to leave will make them uncertain about staying. Do not promise you will come back at a break or that they can call you. Reassure them that you will see them after school and be proud that they were brave all day long.
Know that most children who cry stop very soon after the parent leaves. Young children need to be prepared for their parent leaving, live through that experience, and come out stronger as a result.