Northern Lights School Division's (NLSD) French immersion programming in Cold Lake will be centralized out of Art Smith Aviation Academy come September.
“By centralizing the program it's good in the financial sense and good in the sense for the program to flourish,” said NLSD trustee Mandi Skogen. “We will possibly lose some students due to the different timetable and longer bus rides. To make this program flourish there's going to be setbacks.”
The decision was one of six recommendations the NLSD Board of Trustees voted on during their March 23 meeting. With declining enrolment numbers in NLSD's French immersion program in Cold Lake, the division was forced to explore the sustainability of the second language. French immersion students make up approximately 4.8 per cent of their student population, or 182 students, split between the three schools.
The series of suggestions stemmed from consultations held with French immersion parents in Cold Lake earlier this year. On Jan. 21 a group of 32 parents from Art Smith Aviation Academy, Cold lake Middle School and North Star Elementary School gathered to provide their thoughts and ideas. A follow-up consultation was hosted a month after with parents from North Star, due to short notice of the first meeting.
“We needed to seek ways to strengthen our second language programming. If it's a program parents know will flourish then it will grow over time,” said board chair Arlene Hrynyk. “We need to ensure that the option is available to the community and grow it to a sustainable program that's across all schools.”
Superintendent Rick Cusson explained that inevitably they will lose some students, whether it be from the school division altogether or just students who decide to take English programming to stay at the school they've been attending all along. However, not all trustees were on board with the new location for the centralized French immersion program.
“The strategy for the centralizing I support, I don't know if I support where it's going,” said trustee Maurice Richard. “I don't know if it's the best bang for our dollar.”
With a vote of 6-2 in favour of centralizing French immersion, as of September 2016 all French immersion students will be taught out of Art Smith Aviation Academy, located on 4 Wing Cold Lake.
NLSD trustees approved five further recommendations to help revitalize the division's French immersion program. The first of those is to provide a three-year commitment to parents that the division will support the second language.
“I think it's important we give them a timeline – say no worries for the next three years and we'll see where we can take this program,” said Skogen.
The board also voted in favour of using French enhancement grant money towards a communications campaign to inform parents and the public about the value of French-language learning for students. Further, they will move forward with offering French language summer school, as per suggestions from parents during the consultation.
“This shows the true power that lies in consultation with the parents. This recommendation was actually put forward by the parents,” noted Cusson.
Another change that came directly from the parent consultation sessions is the addition of a bilingual option for Kindergarten. Both the summer camp and Kindergarten option are dependant on if the numbers warrant the program.
The final recommendation that NLSD trustees approved is to continue providing financial support for French immersion students until the point where the program becomes self-sustaining. The intention is the board will review the program again in three years.
While French immersion only runs from Kindergarten to Grade 6 currently, should it become more successful and sustainable, Cusson expressed they will have to look at the following grades.
“I want to thank the community for helping us to come up with solutions,” said Hrynyk. “I would like to see these efforts go across the division. We know that second language programming is valuable to our students.”
