Rochambeau Names M. Xavier Jacquenet Next Proviseur
M. Xavier Jacquenet, French Ministry of Education certified Proviseur with extensive international experience, to lead all academic programs as of the start of the 2020-21 school year
The Board of Trustees of Rochambeau is delighted to announce that Mr. Xavier Jacquenet has accepted our offer to become the new Proviseur of Rochambeau, the French International School. Mr. Jacquenet is a highly accomplished French Proviseur with extensive international experience whom we believe will be a tremendous addition to Rochambeau. He currently serves as the Proviseur of the Cité Scolaire Internationale de Ferney-Voltaire in France, a public French middle and high school with close to 3,000 students that has six different international sections. Previously, he served as the Proviseur of the Lycée Antoine de St. Exupéry in Santiago, Chile, and as Deputy Proviseur of the French Lycée in Singapore, both of which are members of the AEFE network of French schools abroad. Mr. Jacquenet has been a certified member of the corps of Proviseurs and Deputy Proviseurs of the French Ministry of Education since 2006 and has helped train candidates to the national exam for becoming a Proviseur in France. Mr. Jacquenet is also fluent in French, English and Spanish. He is very excited to be joining Rochambeau’s leadership team, where he will oversee all of Rochambeau’s academic programs starting next year and will report to our Executive Director, Ms. Helene Fabre.
Concurrently, the Board has elected to transition from a “conventionnée” school to a “partner” school within the AEFE network effective at the end of the 2020-2021 school year to ensure that Rochambeau has a clear and stable path forward in these extraordinarily challenging times. By transitioning to a “partner” school within the AEFE network, Rochambeau will join 45 of the other 47 schools in the United States that are within the AEFE network, all of which are “partner” schools, including the Lycées in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston among others.
This change will have no impact on Rochambeau’s core mission of providing an accredited multi-cultural and multi-lingual education based on the French curriculum that enables its students to understand and improve the world around them, obtain the French Baccalauréat with outstanding results, and gain admission to many of the best universities in France as well as the US, the UK, Canada and elsewhere.
To be clear, Rochambeau will continue to:
- Remain a member of the AEFE network;
- Deliver an accredited French education that ensures students will continue to have access to the full network of AEFE schools worldwide; and
- Deliver an education accredited both in France and the State of Maryland that ensures its students can achieve outstanding results on the new French bac and obtain a US High School Diploma.
In addition to remaining a member of the AEFE network, and to ensure Rochambeau’s continued strength based on an accredited French curriculum and French language and culture, the Board has mandated its Executive Committee to begin negotiations with the Mission Laïque Française (MLF). The MLF is a non-profit organization founded in 1902 whose mission is to spread French language and culture by creating, running and supporting schools outside France. It currently includes 112 French schools around the world, including 32 of the 47 French schools in the US, and is led by former senior administrators from the French Ministry of Education. The MLF is highly regarded for the unparalleled quality of its teacher training and development programs.
In the current circumstances there are no greater priorities for the Board than to prepare for the challenges ahead. In the coming weeks we will be announcing several initiatives to provide additional support to the families of our community, to ensure our teachers and personnel are safe and keep their jobs at Rochambeau, and to ensure that as many children as possible can continue to benefit from the gift of a French multilingual education. To succeed in that mission, it is imperative that we operate with a unified and steadfast leadership, and that all our efforts are laser focused towards the greater goal of preserving Rochambeau. This is the only way to ensure Rochambeau’s future is as strong as possible for all of its present and future community and that Rochambeau continues to deliver the high-quality education to its students that is its hallmark.
We are thrilled that Mr. Jacquenet had agreed to join the school’s leadership team to help drive that mission and look forward to introducing him to the entire Rochambeau community very soon.
François Legros,
Board of Trustees President
