The French International School of Boca Raton Le Petit Prince, Boca Raton | Fees, Rankings, Address, Admission, Vacancies, Reviews & More

A disorganized mess.

When you tour the school, everything will seem lovely as the headmaster will promise you an amazing care for your child and curriculum.

The reality is much different. My daughter attended the school in 2021-2022. During this time, an assistant that was part of the promised 2 adults per 15 children base, abruptly left and parents weren’t made aware. One teacher was left with 15 2-year-old children, a few who kept hitting the others day after day with nothing done or communicated to the parents (my daughter and her little friend would tell us after school, and later the teacher would confirm). This went on for months. If a staff ever leaves, the school has a hard time replacing them as they are required to be fluent in French and English.

Nearly all the teachers listed on their website (who appear super qualified ) are no longer there, I believe also because of the confusion they must experience in the workplace.

The school has a Spring Parade, but you aren’t told of the date of the parade until a few days before (as if parents aren’t working and in need of extra time to make sure they are free). The kids “bake” in class, but you are only told about it 2 days before and asked to provide all materials for it.

In January of our year, I asked for info on next year’s tuition, and I was told it would be coming soon. I followed up in February, March then April and kept being given the same answer while also being reassured that my daughter’s spot was saved. The other parents told me that it’s the “French way” and so, though delayed, we will hear information soon.

As you can imagine, by then, most other schools were filled up. And finally in JUNE, we were emailed by the headmaster that a new location for the school had finally been found (this was the first time she had ever communicated that the school was to be moving at all) after months of searching for a school all over Palm Beach. She urged us to sign up right away and pay in order to “reserve” our spot. I emailed Sophie, the headmaster, back and asked for the location of the new school, what the school would be like before I gave any money. Within 12 hours, she messaged me back saying prek3 spots had all been filled up but that I could sign up for prek4 (without providing anymore info).

I told her this was unprofessional and that I’d have to think about. Finally, after realizing we had no other choice and after wanting to keep some type of “consistency” with schools as my daughter was getting a little sister, I signed up for the new school year and paid. I ended up paying two more tuition statement by August (as that is how their “payment plan” works for the year). Finally, as the start date of end of August was approaching, I called the school and they told me the new location was not yet ready. Then we received an emailing stating that the school did not get approval for added walls inside the building so that all prek classes would be doing different lessons in the same room as well as that school would not be starting the following week but be delayed.

At this point, I emailed and called the school asking for my money back due to breach of contract and decided to look literally anywhere else for my daughter to attend. I was told via phone that my money will not be returned as I “can’t just decide not to go and get your money back,” as if I randomly decided this… not as if THEY were completely unprepared for the school year and moved the start date.

I have tried to contact the headmaster by email, post, phone,in person, but no returns in communication have been made. The school owes us more than $5000.

So my recommendation would be to stay away from here if you can. The only reason we had even decided to sign up was because of lack of other options, because of consistency, because we had liked my daughter’s teacher, because her little best friend was going there, because we had a big life change happening. But obviously we were idiots for not picking up on the 100 red flags before that.

Don’t make the same mistake…

Good luck!

Before my husband and I had our daughter, I always told him that I would love our children, thinking about the future, to speak, read, and be able to think in French, which is one of the language we both share. I did not waste time and went on line to search the web where I saw the name and a few others as well. Le Petit Prince was the first I contacted and made an appointment with. At that time, my daughter just turned 12 months. With no hesitation I was already sold by the director’s welcome, warmth, care, and the activities that were presented to me. As soon as I got into my car, I remembered telling my husband that I found the school where our daughter would attend.
Today, our daughter is in her second year at the school. We love the homey feeling, the warmth and care of the teachers, the way the teachers and the director keep in touch with the parents (one to one, text, little notes, or email). They are NEVER too busy to speak, answer, or text. Transparency is really the school motto! At three, my daughter is already counting and be more specific of how many chocolate bars she’d like or the number of eggs she’s like in the morning. We feel blessed that we found Le Petit Prince. Our daughter even dreams about school sometimes! When she wakes up on a Saturday or Sunday where there is no school, she asked: “Maman, je vais a l’ecole aujourd’hui?”. Over all, we highly recommend it and we guaranty that you will not regret it!

We love this schools so much. My son has been attending for three years and I don’t have enough good things to say about it. It’s a small school with a family feel – every member of staff are kind, caring, wonderful people who love the children in their care. I also love the teaching philosophy of the school where the children have lots of opportunities to be creative through arts, music and more, and are given the opportunity to learn to think for themselves rather than just being told what is the ‘right’ answer to something. They get lots of opportunities to be outdoors, take part in amazing projects and learn about different cultures. My son will keep going to this school for as long as he can – I hope they open up a middle and a high school too!! Thank you Le Petit Prince for giving my son such wonderful experiences and for your constant high-quality attention and care.