A cap on expansion of the district’s French immersion program has raised the ire of parents wanting to enrol their child in the popular program next fall.
School District 47 administrators have limited the number of enrolments to about half of its usual number.
Space at James Thomson Elementary School is at a premium as the French program has continued to grow over the past five years.
In response to the concerns, Jay Yule, district superintendent, reported to the Powell River board of education trustees that he attended the James Thomson Parent Advisory Council (PAC) meeting to talk about the critical space challenges facing the program.
“We’d like to accommodate everyone,” said Yule. “We’re really happy with the growth at James Thomson and are huge supporters of the French immersion program. We just have to find a way to fit all the students who would like to be there.”
In an interview with the Peak, Matthew Hull, PAC president, acknowledged that the school is reaching capacity but he is concerned that a cap may damage the program in the long term. He added he is glad to hear that the district is willing to talk about potential solutions to the problem.
Hull said that many parents were not aware that a cap would be put in place to slow enrolment and it was not discussed when the program was started.
Hull suggested that the program’s success had resulted in the current situation, adding that no one predicted how fast it would grow or where it would go when it was started. At that time, it was estimated that the program may have an enrolment of 10 per cent of the district’s kindergarten students. Last year it had doubled, said Hull. In previous years about 22 students were accepted into the program each September for kindergarten.
When construction wraps up this month, the district plans to move the portable classroom currently at Henderson Elementary to James Thomson.
With enrolment of 120 there are more students signed up for French immersion than go to Kelly Creek Community School and Texada Elementary, he added.
Hull said the district has never made promises to extend the program into secondary school, but that is a question in need of an answer soon.
“There’s a lot of parents who want this to be the start of the conversation, not the end,” he said, adding that many have expressed the idea of forming a long-range planning committee for the program. Yule announced that he would be sitting down with parents to talk about how to solve the problem and bring those potential solutions for discussion at the board of education for a future meeting.
