Bay Area's First Spanish Bilingual Independent School opening this fall.

Founded by educators and parents of bilingual children.

Oakland, CA, January 13, 2006 - The Bay Area's first Spanish Bilingual Independent School will be opening in September 2006 in the Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland. Although Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the state of California, the second most widely spoken language in the United States, and the fourth most widely spoken language in the world, Escuela Bilinguüe Internacional (EBI) will be the very first Spanish-English immersion independent school in northern California. In the greater Bay Area there are four French-American bilingual independent schools, four Chinese schools and a number with programs in Armenian, Cantonese, Danish, German, Norwegian and Swedish.

These statistics are some of the thoughts that inspired the founding board of EBI. As most are parents of young children in bilingual households - and many being educators themselves - , they faced an important dilemma: What school will continue to develop their children's Spanish as an equal second language to English? The only clear solution was starting a school to fill this need. As board member and teacher Geri Oliver, a native of Venezuela, states, "We wanted our daughter to grow up in the richness of both languages, because of the tremendous educational benefits of an immersion program, and because the options available to her in the future will be much broader if she is fluent in Spanish."

Founding a truly dual immersion school that can deliver on the promise of children being equally capable in both languages across all elements of the academic environment seemed to be the only way to accomplish their goals. "At the same time that we are creating a powerful education for our children, we are creating a community of bilingualism and multiculturalism. The EBI board alone has representatives from six countries, from Spain to Mexico and Central and South America. We look forward to our school being a place where culture and language can be shared among English-speaking families who want their children to grow up bilingual, and bilingual families alike," says board chair Liza Sánchez, who is an educator focused on bilingualism and curriculum development.

Also, it is not lost to the founders that the opening of this school puts Spanish on more of an equal cultural footing with other languages for which similar schools already exist. "Given the importance of Spanish in California and throughout the region, we feel very strongly that its profile needs to be raised. Providing an environment where Spanish language is the mode of instruction rather than simply a foreign language sends a message about its importance relative to French, Mandarin and other languages," says board member David Goldstein, a Berkeley parent who works in the field of educational evaluation and teacher professional development.

EBI's nonprofit mission is to provide an excellent Spanish-English bilingual education based on the highest international academic standards in an environment that thrives on diversity, fosters global citizenship, and develops the character necessary to recognize that cultural uniqueness is the touchstone of our common humanity.

EBI is led by a talented Board of Trustees made up of educators, academics and professionals from the public and private sectors, all of whom are parents and most of whom have English-Spanish bilingual households.

EBI will offer a Spanish-English dual language program and will open its doors to its inaugural students in preschool, kindergarten and 1st grade in September 2006. The school will add one grade level each year through 2013 when it will graduate its first 8th grade class. Students at EBI will achieve fluency in two languages and conversational fluency in a third language. They will follow the International Baccalaureate curriculum, a field-tested, internationally recognized academic curriculum that is currently used in over 1,500 schools throughout the world and accepted as a standard for transfer to either public or private high schools. EBI's well-rounded curriculum will also include the arts, cultural activities, and athletics.

Applications are available on their website and are due on February 17, 2006.

English version: www.ebinternational.org/admissions/

Spanish version: www.ebinternational.org/admissions/admision.html

For additional information please visit www.ebinternacional.org or contact:

Liza Sánchez, EBI Board Chair

Tel: 510-653-3324

lsanchez at ebinternacional.org