Geneva - Post Report Question and Answers
What is the availability of international schools? What has been your general experience with them, if any?
Tons of schools. Our four boys go to CDL, a fancy international school in Versoix that has about 300 boarding students there as well. For some reason, it seems the school has a bad reputation in our mission community. We have found it to be an excellent school. When we had issues with our primary student and children being unkind, we wrote an email and the entire school addressed our problem immediately. Our Middle school student has anxiety and adhd. The counseling department is amazing. They have this excellent setup in my opinion, because they are a boarding school as well, but we have used it to the full degree. They have 3-4 counselors, a therapist, tutors, etc. My son takes study skills classes there and does a lunch brunch for children that are struggling. All of our teachers have been excellent. I’ll write a school report soon. - Jun 2022
Had I had a child of school age I would have put her in the local schools so she could develop a second language. However, the one my friend's daughter went to allowed her the chance to help build a school in Tanzania and produce a play in Jordan. - Jul 2018
I do not have personal experience though there are several options and with varying opinions on each. - Mar 2014
Lots of them, but with few spaces. Expensive and not for all kids, unfortunatelly. - Mar 2014
There are tons of international schools of all types, but I don't have direct experience with them. I live in bordering France (like many expats) and send my child to a local public school which has international/bilingual sections because of the large international population. - Mar 2013
My kids go to Collège du Léman (CDL) and we don't like it. Many Americans send their kids to one of the International School of Geneva (ISG) campuses and I also hear many complaints from them. The teachers are disengaged and seem not to care at all, the school won't really back you up, no after-school sports or activities to speak of and the expectation is you'll find sports in your town, in the club sports places for kids, but if your kid doesn't speak French, then good luck with that. No teacher-to-parent communication. My kid was failing a class, but I didn't even know till I got the report card and it was too late to do anything about it! He's in high school. These grades matter. I could have gotten him a tutor. My daughter says the teachers are very strict. Not the friendly high fives in the halls she'd get from teachers at previous posts, where they know the kids, talk to them, coach their teams and so on. This is very much a "come to school, go to class, listen to the teacher talk, then go home and do a lot of homework" kind of place. No sense of community or family ... Lots of problems with the schools. - Feb 2012
