Our History

The International School began as the City School Of Detroit, Inc. in a storefront on Livernois Avenue in Northwest Detroit in 1968. With two large classrooms, the school enrolled 37 students in grades K-3 as a model program. We were the first non-graded, open classroom, private neighborhood school with a foreign language program in the United States. National coverage plus many visits from educators gave us an instant reputation for our creativity and the novelty of beginning children in French at the kindergarten level. None of our students had any previous experiences with French nor did their parents. This foreign language component has always been unique among all the public and private schools in southeast Michigan. It is the lasting foundation of our school that we can see the success of this study not only for the acquisition of another language, but for the general good it has meant in the entire curriculum.

In 1981 when the school moved to Southfield with an infusion of French nationals, our name was changed to the Lycee International School. Five years later, Lycee was dropped and we have since been the International School. Afterwards we introduced Spanish and German language immersion programs at the school, in addition to the ongoing French program. The German program formed a foundation for attracting German nationals to the school, and as a result, we subsequently were recognized as officially offering a German Program consistent with the same language program in the German state of Nordrhein Westphalia.

We have seen hundreds of children attend our school, and the one common thread has been the positive memories of time well spent and friendships never forgotten. We remain committed to foreign language proficiency in an academic setting that stresses the broad liberal arts as we advance into the future. We have come a long way from our humble beginnings to a modern educational facility and we celebrate our students and their parents for their support in making a dream into reality.