Dear Friends and Visitors:

It is with very great pleasure that I welcome you to the website of the French American International School and the International High School! As an independent PreK-12 establishment of 940 students, we are the oldest and largest bilingual French/English school in California, the only truly international school west of the Mississippi, and the most widely respected, well-established and accredited world leader in global education in the United States.
We offer consistently rigorous academic programs of study leading to both the International Baccalaureate and French Baccalaureate diplomas, both through our tried and true programs in linguistic immersion, and through our many exchange trips and overseas community service projects. Our highly talented students graduate as sophisticated, knowledgeable, globally-aware, multi-lingual critical thinkers and international citizens of the world, and as such are accepted not only into national Ivy League universities but also into prestigious international universities around the world. Recent graduates were accepted into Dartmouth, Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, Sorbonne, McGill and many others.

Our original mission statement, adopted 46 years ago by our far-sighted founders, emphasizes both academic rigor and diversity in all its many forms. We have never compromised on this educational vision or on our core values: academic excellence is delivered daily by an internationally-recruited corps of truly talented, highly specialized faculty numbering 126 full-time individuals representing 25 countries and 220 graduate degrees and diplomas. Our student body represents 56 nationalities and a myriad differing socio-economic, ethnic, religious, political and social backgrounds. Our goal is to celebrate, rather than to tolerate, the differences we all bring to the community, and we do this through a daily expression of pride and inclusion.

Above all, we graduate students who are thoughtful and compassionate human beings, just as much as they are great scholars. These are fabulously creative, innovative, risk-taking individuals... young adults who know how to separate truth from propaganda, fact from fiction, source material from tertiary reference, and innuendo from data. In other words, these are the much-needed leaders of tomorrow.
Please do explore our website, call us, visit us, and learn more. We hope you will realize that an international education is, without doubt, the only viable education for the 21 st century, and for the world which our children will inherit and in which they will live.
The faculty, staff and I look forward to meeting you all!

Bien cordialement,


Jane Camblin
Proviseur/Head of School