Rainbow board to review French immersion program

Whenever the Rainbow District School Board has held accommodation reviews examining the future of its schools in recent years, parents have brought up issues about the board’s French immersion programming, according to Doreen Dewar.

The long-time Rainbow board trustee said she’s “overjoyed” her fellow trustees voted at a Jan. 24 meeting to review the board’s French immersion programming in 2011.

“I think (the review) is going to be very beneficial, and I think it’s going to result in an even better delivery of the French immersion program,” Dewar said.

The school board’s director of education, Norm Blaseg, made the recommendation the board’s French immersion programming, which provides a balance of French and English instruction to students with a goal of bilingualism, be reviewed.

Blaseg said the program is “flourishing” in some schools, particularly in elementary schools such as R.L. Beattie Public School and Valley View Public School.

However, in some of the board’s high schools, French immersion enrolment is low. Sudbury Secondary School has just 32 students enroled in the program.

The overall enrolment in French immersion at both the elementary and secondary school levels has also dropped over the last five years.

There were 2,517 elementary students enroled in French immersion in 2005, but that number had dropped to 2,368 last year. In 2005, 770 students were enroled in French immersion at a high school level, but that number had dropped to 691 last year.

Blaseg said the review will ensure the board is able to offer a “rich” French immersion program.

“We want to make sure that it is not only rich in the elementary system, but there’s some momentum so it carries right through the secondary system as well,” he said.

“As you can see, some of the numbers indicate that certain sites may be challenged...We have to figure out if a program is viable if there’s only 30 or 50 kids in (French immersion at a school) at the secondary level.”

Dena Morrison, another Rainbow board trustee, said changes in the high school curriculum emphasizing academics may be to blame for fewer students in French immersion in higher grades.

“Instead of getting a bilingual certificate, their emphasis is more on career direction,” she said.

“They’d rather make sure they can take university-level physics than ‘histoire,’ which means that the enrolment in courses like ‘histoire’ or French phys ed or ‘geographie’ may drop, because they’re concerned about getting their mandatory academic credits for their next step.”

She said the review may have a number of outcomes, including decreasing the number of French immersion course options in high schools, or reducing the number of schools offering French immersion.

A plan for how the program review will be conducted is being developed by board staff and will be brought to the trustees’ Feb. 22 board meeting.

A committee comprised of teachers and administrators will explore the issue and board staff will make recommendations, Blaseg said. The public will also be consulted.

Trustees also voted Jan. 24 to consider accommodation reviews of Espanola area schools and Valley North area schools (the Chelmsford, Dowling and Levack areas) within the next five years.

Accommodation reviews examine how surplus school space can be reduced while at the same time maintaining quality education.

Several schools in the Espanola and Valley North areas will be less than half full by the 2014-15 school year, according to information provided by board staff.

Trustees spoke at the meeting about how just 52 per cent of the Espanola High School Building will be in use in the fall of 2012 when Conseil scolaire catholique du Nouvel Ontario (CSCNO) opens a high school in the area.

CSCNO currently leases space at Espanola High School for its high school students.

Trustees passed a motion put forward by Dewar, which stated that a letter should be sent to the Ministry of Education. The letter would point out the ministry’s decision to fund the new CSCNO school will in turn lead the Rainbow board to review its Espanola area schools.

“I just feel that this is a perfect example of the kind of roadblocks that prevent a board such as ourselves from being able to control its expenditures,” Dewar said.