Banking on KC – Elimane Mbengue of Académie Lafayette
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Kelly Scanlon:
Welcome to Banking on KC. I'm your host, Kelly Scanlon. Thank you for joining us. With us on this episode is Elimane Mbengue, the head of school at Academie Lafayette. Welcome, Elimane.
Elimane Mbengue:
Thank you.
Kelly Scanlon:
Glad to have you here and to tell us about the origins of Academie Lafayette.
Elimane Mbengue:
Academie Lafayette is an educational institution founded by a group of parents, teachers, whose children were KCPS school district, Kansas City Public School District. At the time, there were a lot of language immersion schools, but at some point, those parents were afraid that the school district were going to eliminate the French program. And they decided to create the first charter school in Missouri and then they created Academie Lafayette.
Kelly Scanlon:
So as a charter school, help me understand, is it still part of the Kansas City Public school District or is it operating on its own completely?
Elimane Mbengue:
It's like a school district. It's independent like any other school district.
Kelly Scanlon:
Okay, and so tell us about the mission of the school and how it's different from some of the other schools in the area.
Elimane Mbengue:
Well, because the mission is to educate the children of Kansas City in a language immersion program and then to give them critical thinking, problem solving, and global citizenship. So global awareness. So it's mainly geared toward language immersion, multilingualism, and of course academic excellence of course is part of it. So it's different because if you look at our mission and the way we operate with regard to our curriculum, it's very different from any other school district. For instance, our teachers come from 16 different countries. It is done on purpose because we would want to expose our kids to the global environment through our teachers. And we also help our kids to visit countries like France or in ... at this point we are planning trips to Guadalupe. And it's part of our plan also for high school to go Senegal, West Africa, Costa Rica, and China. So we really want our kids to have a world-class education. We also offer middle year program and international baccalaureate diploma program. So it's very rigorous. As I said, our ambition is to offer what is best in the world in education.
Kelly Scanlon:
So you are preparing students in the general academics, plus you are preparing them to be well-educated, well-informed citizens of the world.
Elimane Mbengue:
Yes. We want our kids to be multilingual. The instructional language of instruction is French, is the language of instruction from pre-K to eighth grade. But at the same time, starting middle school, they have to take either Spanish or Mandarin on top of French and English.
Kelly Scanlon:
That is very demanding.
Elimane Mbengue:
It is.
Kelly Scanlon:
Who attends Academie Lafayette?
Elimane Mbengue:
Our students come from all over the boundary of KCPS because any student living within the boundary of Kansas City Public School is eligible to be accepted to our school. Being a charter school, in general we have more students, more applicants for kindergarten and first grade than the number of seats available. In which case we have to do a lottery because students and the winners will be enrolled at Academie Lafayette. So our school is pre-K to 12th grade but the French immersion is only from pre-K to eighth grade.
Kelly Scanlon:
Okay, thank you.
Elimane Mbengue:
The high school is International Baccalaureate high school because we take additional students from other school district. That's why. And they don't have French. But the total enrollment is 1,350 students.
Kelly Scanlon:
If I were to send my student to Academie Lafayette, what are some of the things that I would see different? You've explained how the curriculum is different and just the rigorous nature of some of the courses. But is the school day pretty much a traditional one in terms of hours and the way the classrooms are set up and all of that?
Elimane Mbengue:
Well, I think what will a little bit surprise parents is that the classes are taught in French. Everything is taught in French, except for, for instance, in kindergarten and first grade, except for 30 minutes a day of English. So all the way to eighth grade, everything is taught in French. Math, science, P.E. and so on. Our students only have 50 minutes of English language. However, this is what is interesting is, or I would say in general, we outperform surrounding school district, including suburban school district, in English language arts. Our kids always outscore and outperform those kids in English language arts.
Kelly Scanlon:
Even though they're only getting 30 minutes a day.
Elimane Mbengue:
It's only 30 minutes kindergarten, first grade, and one hour from second grade all the way to eighth grade.
Kelly Scanlon:
What do you think accounts for that?
Elimane Mbengue:
Because there is what is called language transfer. So it's like they're having twice in the language arts, the word in French and in English transfer. If you come to middle school, for instance, they have five hours for English language arts, they have five hours of social study, five hours of math and science and so on. And all those technical academic words they learn in French will transfer in English. And there is a good study showing that literacy in those content area, like social study, math, science, help kids get more proficiency in languages. So it's helpful.
Kelly Scanlon:
Why does French in particular, why does French language immersion work as an education model as opposed to, say, another language?
Elimane Mbengue:
Well, other languages may work too because there are a lot of studies in bilingual education. Some programs do dual language, meaning 50/50, 50% of the time in English and 50% of the time in the other language. We do not do that. We do 85/15 or 80/20 and it's working for us.
Kelly Scanlon:
You mentioned that the school was an outgrowth of the Kansas City public schools and a concern that the French program would be eliminated. And under your watch, it's grown considerably since that time. What are some of the highlights?
Elimane Mbengue:
So we grew from around 750 students to 1,350.
Kelly Scanlon:
So nearly double.
Elimane Mbengue:
Double. And it's not done yet. Because in four more years, we will be around 2,000 students. Academie Lafayette is the biggest public French immersion program in the country. And it will be, in a couple of years, the biggest, I mean, French immersion program, even private or public, in the country, right in the middle of the Midwest. People who would be surprised to ask why French, but it's working, because it's not only the language, it's the rigor and academic program. People always see generally, oh, the language immersion. But we have great teachers and our kids do really well in science and also in mathematics.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. I know you said they outperformed their peers in other schools in English but what about the other academic subjects?
Elimane Mbengue:
We do really, really well. If you look at the 550 school district in Missouri and you look at how well we do, let's say prior to pandemics, we have done, example, whether it's in English language art, math or science, if you take the scores of every single school district and you rank them, we have always been on the top 15. For each of those subjects, if you aggregate them, we will be among the top five. So with the pandemic, we have been hit, probably because we're teaching in French online. Now we are getting back to where we were and then we want to be again the top school district in Missouri.
As I said, we just have been authorized to offer the full IB program, International Baccalaureate program, which is really rigorous. And around 50% of kids, our students, are taking the full IB, which is very high because most school districts are around 20, 25%. Taking full IB, International Baccalaureate program. So of course the growth also comes with buying new buildings. I mean, the school started in a temple, but then moved to our first building and now we have three buildings. We bought one building in Midtown and renovated and moved the middle school and high school there.
Kelly Scanlon:
Academie Lafayette's made diversity a priority. Tell us about your efforts there.
Elimane Mbengue:
We've noticed is we were losing our diversity. At the beginning, the school was located east of Holmes. And then we were able to buy the J.C. Nichols building, so west of Holmes, and we moved there. With the success of our program, we have more Brookside parents enrolling there, which is great of course. But at the same time too, it changed our diversity. We went from 60% minority to 40% minority or 35% minority. What we want now is to educate the children of Kansas City, as we said in our mission statement, making sure that our school district reflect the population within the boundary of Kansas City School District.
Kelly Scanlon:
How have you done that?
Elimane Mbengue:
What we are trying to do is to get to 50/50 at least in 2028. We are now at 43/57, so we've almost taken I would say 10 point over the last five years. And we are moving in the right direction. So we are confident that we'll get to 50/50 in the next five years.
Kelly Scanlon:
What are some of the things that you're doing that are driving that upward number?
Elimane Mbengue:
So we have a very aggressive outreach program. We offer French language in preschools for free. So I should say that the last two years we have been having real challenge finding a preschool French teacher. But that's what we've done, offering ... targeting low income and minority also preschools that offer French language for free. We also have a preschool with French, offering French. It usually create more awareness of our program. So for our program and drawing more application. We also try to target really aggressively low-income zip codes and minorities to make sure that they're aware of what we are offering. Unfortunately, many people one day hear Academie Lafayette, they think it's a private school.
Kelly Scanlon:
You would think it was when you describe it, yeah.
Elimane Mbengue:
Yeah. Unfortunately, that's what they think. But it is not a private school, it's a free public charter school and open to anybody living within the Kansas City public school boundary. So that's what we did. And also making sure that we connect with minority students and minority parents. And it has been successful so far.
Kelly Scanlon:
You've had a bit of a journey yourself before accepting your position at the school. Started in Senegal, then Brookside in Kansas City. And why was this appealing to you?
Elimane Mbengue:
Yeah, so I started my career 35 years ago in Senegal as a elementary school teacher in a village. I taught in a village, of course. Of course without all the resources we have now ... I have now. And I worked my way becoming a middle high school teacher and what is called inspector of education. And inspector is like a school district administrator, like a superintendent. And then I moved. I also taught in England. I taught French at the University of Exeter in England. And after that I moved a couple of years in Senegal and went to Portland, Oregon. I lived, I would say, 12 years in Portland, Oregon, and I was a teacher and school administrator. Head of school in a French immersion school accredited by the French government. It's a school that implemented the French curriculum, like in France. So the kids would take the exact same tests as the students in France, in French and in math. So they did really well. So after that, of course, I moved to a charter school before coming here. I've been here for ... since when? 2012 and it's great.
Kelly Scanlon:
So 11 years.
Elimane Mbengue:
11 years. It's great. And finishing my 20 years of school administrator in the US.
Kelly Scanlon:
What drew you to Academie Lafayette in particular?
Elimane Mbengue:
Well, Academie Lafayette is very attractive if you were an administrator because the board already, the board who recruited me, had a really great vision. Building the school and adding International Baccalaureate program, foreign languages, it's a really great vision. I like the vision and I liked also the fact that the school also is a public school. Remember I went from a private school to a public school, what I was offering-
But it is amazing. I don't regret it. It's very, very exciting. And we had a lot of work to do. I still have a very good team, so a great board, a great team.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah. You obviously can't just come in and just have everything be perfect and everything you want it to be right out of the gate. So what were some of your early wins, so to speak?
Elimane Mbengue:
First thing we did is work with the teachers to reorganize the curriculum. Had a written aligned curriculum, a huge task. And we also, back then, our English language art scores were not where we wanted to be. We also built a literacy program and a reading intervention program and work with teachers in making sure that our students have opportunity to read French books every day. And you see the results were really great. As I said, we moved from our students, some of our students struggling in English language art to being amongst top school district in English language art for many years.
Kelly Scanlon:
Students and parents choose Academie Lafayette. Is that one of the things that makes it work is because the people who are there want to be there?
Elimane Mbengue:
Parents also are very engaged, very involved, and that's part of our success too. Parents at Academie Lafayette are very engaged and involved in the school. We have a board that is extremely also engaged, great staff. As I said, our staff come from all over the world. At the same time, we have a good, cooperative environment. It works also because, of course, we want it to be offering what is best. It's not easy but we [inaudible 00:15:45] the curriculum was a lot of work, a lot of frustration. But we had to do it and we did it. Align our grading system, align our resources, making sure we provide the resources that our teachers need.
Kelly Scanlon:
What's your long-term goal for the school?
Elimane Mbengue:
Five years ago, we developed an expansion plan. Remember we were only K-8. We decided to go pre-K 12 and International Baccalaureate diploma program. And we developed as an expansion plan in three phases. Phase one was to take more kindergarten students. We were accepting 120 kindergarten. Now we are accepting 200. And then we bought building to accommodate that growth. And then opened the high school. Now we have a third phase, opening of the high school is the second phase of our growth plan. The third phase of our growth plan is construction, building an auditorium and a gymnasium for the new campus, our campus for our middle and high school. But also renovating our elementary school program to make sure that they have central AC. They're old buildings. We need to really renovate them and make them top-notch conditions. It's a lot of money, so we are going to engage into another capital campaign.
Kelly Scanlon:
You mentioned that in a few years, in not too short a time, that this will be the number one French immersion school in the country. Do you see it as being a potential model for schools in other cities?
Elimane Mbengue:
Yes. The school is celebrating this year it's 25th anniversary. 25 years is something.
Kelly Scanlon:
It is.
Elimane Mbengue:
And we've developed a culture of excellence.
People are surprised to hear that this school exists in Kansas City and want to see what we are doing. We receive people coming to visit from other schools, other cities, to see what we are doing. Especially those who would like to create immersion program. So in a few years, of course we will be the biggest school, that's in terms of size. But in terms of college too, it'll be hard to find a school that offer what we do. If you take our graduate profile and you compare any school district in this state, it's hard to beat us. The challenge we have, of course, is also attracting low income students. It's easier to recruit minorities because they're visible, but low income, you don't know who is low income and who is not.
Kelly Scanlon:
Right. True.
Elimane Mbengue:
And that's much more challenging. And we just want to look at the city census and target zip codes with low income and make sure we support them. Also, it's not only about recruiting minorities or low income students, it's about also building a school culture that is inclusive, equitable, supportive for those families and for those parents to stay with us and be successful. We want to attract them, but we want to keep them and make them successful.
Kelly Scanlon:
Elimane, thank you so much for building this school. I mean, I know you've had a team, as you've said, but for taking it to the heights that it's had and to create, as we've talked about, global citizens. Children who, once they graduate, are ready to go out and take on the larger world. We really appreciate all of your time and efforts in that regard. Thank you.
Elimane Mbengue:
Thank you very much for the invitation.
Joe Close:
This is Joe Close, president of Country Club Bank. Thank you to Elimane Mbengue for being our guest on this episode of Banking on KC. The mission of Academie Lafayette is to educate Kansas City children to become globally minded, locally active critical thinkers through immersion in world languages and cultures. This type of education not only prepares students for success in the increasingly global world in which we live, it also teaches them to be culturally aware. Learning about different cultures fosters creativity, innovation, empathy, and social cohesion. It also helps create a global environment in which we help one another succeed. Thanks for tuning in this week. We're banking on you Kansas City, Country Club Bank, member FDIC.