Initially founded in 1977 by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to meet the academic needs of Italians living in the New York City area, thanks to an ever increasing interest on the part of American families, La Scuola has grown into a unique bilingual educational institution, reflecting the best features of the Italian and American system. La Scuola is committed to providing a bicultural education to foster international understanding and openness in order to prepare students to become citizens of the world. The challenging bilingual curriculum, deeply rooted in the European classical tradition, offers an intensive academic program. A program of Italian as a Second Language is offered to English-speaking students, grades 1-9. The unique curriculum is designed to give students a firm grounding in liberal arts, math and science, together with a formidable competence in foreign languages.