What are the Saint Louis Language Immersion Schools?

St. Louis Language Immersion Schools Inc. is a federal non-profit organization that operates a network of independent charter public schools in St. Louis, MO. In 2009, SLLIS opened the first two schools in its network: The French School and The Spanish School.

In 2012, SLLIS opened The Chinese School. Each school opened with Kindergarten and First Grade students and will grow to Fifth Grade. The French School and The Spanish School are currently candidate schools for the Primary Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate.  The International School, our secondary campus, will open with 6th grade in 2014.  The International School will implement Middle Years Programme (MYP) and Diploma Programme (DP) for all students.

The SLLIS network will grow to include up to 8 elementary schools and a secondary school. All schools in the SLLIS network will implement the International Baccalaureate curricular frameworks in addition to local and national achievement measures. SLLIS has a 5-year charter from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education that is overseen by University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Each school in the SLLIS network is funded primarily by DESE and follows DESE’s monthly data collection for student, educator and financial data. University of Missouri-St. Louis conducts a bi-annual review of SLLIS state compliance, academic performance, financial stability and charter fidelity. Although these agencies are officially charged with overseeing our academic progress and fiduciary viability, we believe that the members of our learning community are the people to whom we are most responsible.

We encourage each of you to read through our charter to understand exactly what we intend for each of our schools. We value clear, consistent communication and to that end, have published our full charter application. This document is our road map and reflects a two-year research and development phase. If at any point it appears that we are straying away from the spirit of our charter, please bring your concerns and observations to our attention.