A second attempt for Late French Immersion has come up short again and the proposal is going to be mothballed for a spell.
“We didn’t have enough applicants registered to make it a go, so what we have decided, and the board has accepted to recommend, to defer until there is enough interest there to try again,” said Pam Rannelli, Foothills School Division superintendent of schools. “We haven’t given up, but we might look at a different entry level to see if might be more successful, like at Grade 7.”
The proposal had students starting French Immersion in Grade 5 for the 2019-20 school year at École Percy Pegler School rather than starting in kindergarten.
The late French Immersion students would take the program together through Grade 8. At that point they would join those students who had taken traditional French Immersion, which starts at kindergarten, for Grade 9 to 12.
However, Foothills trustee nixed the proposal for next year at their April 10 meeting for the second- straight year when there wasn’t the required 18 students interested.
The deadline for registration was the end of March. The early deadline was in order to hire a French Immersion teacher, who are in demand across Canada, Rannelli said.
Pegler principal Dinah VanDonzel is disappointed and understands the trustees’ decision, but she would have liked to maybe roll the dice and extend the deadline to as late as June.
“We do want it to be at a class-size that is affordable and reasonable,” VanDonzel said. “But at the same time I do believe that we would have eventually have got there before the start of the school year.
“It is a risk that you are going to have to take, but hopefully by the time September comes around, we can move ahead with the program.”
She said she has had four parents showing interest after the March 27 deadline, bumping the number potentially to 15. She said the program could run at 18.
“Leave those dates open, so we can trickle them in or as people move in to the community,” VanDonzel said.
She said for example in kindergarten, the school allows students to register up to the first day of school.
She believes Grade 5 should be the entry point for the program rather than Grade 7.
“Because the kids are not already making that transition to junior high from Grade 6 to 7 and have their friendships in such a solid way,” VanDonzel said. “We are talking mid-school kids. It is harder to get mid-school kids to move into programming than in Grade 5.”
However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom for the Foothills French Immersion forecast.
Pegler will have pre-kindergarten French Immersion — as well as English pre-kindergarten — in September. The course can be offered because Pegler School has more space with the opening of Meadow Ridge School in September.
As well, Rannelli said the division will put a greater focus on its French as a second language programs.
