Olivia Ramsey, Founder

Olivia is the Executive Director of Smith Street Workshop and Senior Director of Smith Street Maternelle. After completing her Masters degree at Bank Street College of Education, she taught for ten years here in New York, beginning at the Downtown Little School, moving on to the Lycée Français de New York, and finally ending up as one of the founding teachers of PS 58's French Dual Language program in Carroll Gardens.

In the fall of 2013, Olivia started a small tutoring practice out of her apartment on Smith Street. To meet the growing demand for tutoring and academic enrichment in Brooklyn, she founded Smith Street Workshop in 2015.  In 2016, the Workshop added a French Immersion morning playgroup to its offerings, and 2018 marked the opening of Smith Street Maternelle, a fully licensed French Immersion Preschool.

Before her career as an educator, Olivia studied French and traveled extensively abroad. After graduating with a dual-degree in French and Psychology, she worked as the assistant director to Earlham College's semester abroad programs in Paris and in Fort-de-France, Martinique. She deepened her knowledge of French by being immersed in the culture, making lifelong French-speaking friends, and now by being a part of the French/American community here in Brooklyn.