Marie-José Bernard’s Bio

Marie-José Bernard was edu­cated in a tra­di­tional French Catholic school in Haiti until high school. At this time, her fam­ily immi­grated to New York City and she attended Eras­mus Hall High School in Brook­lyn. As a native French speaker and her­self, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of liv­ing a life bridg­ing two cul­tures and four lan­guages she has been able to real­ize her expe­ri­ence, bring­ing it to her life­long career as an educator.

Mme. Bernard com­pleted her BA in Bilin­gual Edu­ca­tion and her Master’s of Sci­ence in Bilin­gual Spe­cial Edu­ca­tion at City Col­lege. In addi­tion, she has a Mas­ter of Sci­ence in Edu­ca­tional Lead­er­ship and Admin­is­tra­tion from Long Island Uni­ver­sity in Brooklyn.

Marie-José began her career in edu­ca­tion as an assis­tant in a Bilin­gual Hait­ian Cre­ole 2nd and 3rd grade class in Brook­lyn. In 1987, she began teach­ing Hait­ian Cre­ole Bilin­gual Kinder­garten at P.S. 139 full­time, where she remained for 12 years. While there, she co-wrote the first Hait­ian Cre­ole cur­ricu­lum for the NYC-DOE. This bilin­gual cur­ricu­lum, lead to Mme. Bernard’s par­tic­i­pa­tion on the New York State Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion Task force, where she co-authored numer­ous New York State Teacher mate­ri­als, for all bilin­gual edu­ca­tion pro­grams in the state. She con­tin­ued to teach at the 5th grade level in the Bilin­gual Hait­ian Cre­ole pro­gram at P.S. 22 before mak­ing the tran­si­tion to Bilin­gual Lan­guage Instruc­tion Spe­cial­ist at the Dis­trict level for Dis­trict 17 in the NYC Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion. As an admin­is­tra­tor at the dis­trict level, Mme. Bernard, directed Hait­ian Cre­ole Bilin­gual Pro­grams for 2 years before becom­ing a resource spe­cial­ist then the direc­tor for HABETAC (Hait­ian Bilin­gual ESL Tech­ni­cal Assis­tance Cen­ter). She directed this pro­gram for both City Col­lege and Brook­lyn College.

Mme. Bernard became an edu­ca­tional con­sul­tant in 2006 prepar­ing teach­ers for all national teach­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion exams, in addi­tion to adult edu­ca­tion test prep such as the GED. She has also worked in Early Inter­ven­tion for Bilin­guals Inc. In 2010 she joined the New York French Amer­i­can Char­ter School as Spe­cial Edu­ca­tion Coor­di­na­tor and in May 2011 became Interim-Acting Principal.

Pub­li­ca­tions:
Hait­ian His­tor­i­cal and Cul­tural Legacy– A Jour­ney Through Time A Resource Guide for Teach­ers HABETAC-The Hait­ian Bilingual/ESL Tech­ni­cal Assis­tance Cen­ter
New York State Edu­ca­tion Department

Marie-José Bernard is a mem­ber of NABE National Asso­ci­a­tion of Bilin­gual Edu­ca­tors and NYSABE New York State Asso­ci­a­tion of Bilin­gual Edu­ca­tors, and TESOL Edu­ca­tors Association.