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GROWTH IN DETROIT EDUCATION: Popular School Moving: Children Learn in Foreign Languages and Find Success

Posted on: Friday, 14 April 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Emilia Askari, Detroit Free Press

Apr. 14--In the sunny room nearest the freeway, where traffic noise can drown out shy voices, French teacher Jean-Daniel Ostertag has piled folders full of verb conjugation exercises into brown cardboard boxes.

Around the corner and down the hall, Spanish teacher Ana Ramirez has pulled colorful posters of life in Latin America from the wall, leaving gobs of tape hanging from the peeling plaster.

Today is moving day at FLICS, the Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural Studies school in Detroit. Boxes line the halls of the broken-down building just off I-75 near Clay Street. There, for almost two decades, more than 6,000 children from kindergarten through fifth grade have learned Japanese, Mandarin, French and Spanish.

Now the unusual and popular school is moving across town, into the old Renaissance High School building. When students return from next week's spring break, they will celebrate in newly renovated classrooms on Outer Drive in northwest Detroit.

In the fall, FLICS will expand through the eighth grade, almost doubling its enrollment to about 700.

"The son of one of our teachers was helping her move the other day. He said, 'You're going from the outhouse to the Taj Mahal. And it's true,' " laughed Inelea Chambers, FLICS' principal for 17 years.

The school's new location on the city's edge has increased its attraction to suburban families. About 100 children from places like Royal Oak, Farmington, Southfield and Oak Park have applied to attend next year, Chambers said.

Another 150 or so children want to transfer to FLICS from charter and parochial schools in Detroit.

No one has officially tracked FLICS graduates to measure their success in high school and beyond. But Chambers can tell you lots of stories about successful former students who have kept in touch.

There's Ayanna Reed, 27, of Detroit who studied Spanish at FLICS. Now she's teaching Spanish at the city's Murray-Wright High School.

And there's Adam Hollier, 20, of Detroit, now a junior at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. He also studied Spanish at FLICS.

"It's an unparalleled experience," he said. "There's no way to explain how valuable that was."

Hollier said that from his FLICS class, students have gone on to numerous prestigious universities, including Dartmouth, Yale, Stanford, Georgetown and the University of Michigan.

"About 85 or 90% of the kids who were in FLICS with me are in college or recently graduated," he said.

Back at the old FLICS building earlier this week, the next generation was busy, soaking up a few more irregular verbs before heading off on vacation.

In Senora Ramirez's classroom, 9-year-old Gerron Billingslea of Detroit was very clear about why he's been learning Spanish since he was five.

"I like speaking different cultures," he said. "And I like Spanish the most. I like the way the words are, the way they sound."

Contact EMILIA ASKARI at 248-351-3298 or easkari@freepress.com.

photo

Spanish teacher Ana Ramirez, 59, looks out through her packed books. The Detroit school uses foreign languages in teaching many topics. (DAVID P. GILKEY/Detroit Free Press)

Facts about FLICS

New address: 6501 W. Outer Dr. in northwest Detroit.

New phone: 313-651-2400, operational April 24.

Open house: May 9, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.

Applications: Can be picked up at the open house or faxed or mailed after April 24.

Admissions: For the schools' 700 slots in kindergarten through eighth grade, returning students and their siblings will have first shot. Then preference will be given to children from the school's neighborhood. The rest of the slots will be filled by a lottery. The school already has 1,000 applicants for next year.

Hopeless to apply now? No, because about 300 slots will be filled via a lottery. Alumni: The school wants you to return for a gala May 20. Contact the school.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Detroit Free Press

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Source: Detroit Free Press

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