On the outside...looking in

The French Immersion program in the Nanaimo Ladysmith school district 68 has grown by about 24% over the last five years with new French Immersion elementary schools being opened and increased elementary student enrolments. This choice program has been very popular with parents because of its enriched curriculum, the increased value of a second language in the work place, and because, let’s face it, some of us believe in the idea of Canada—all of it—English and French.

Many French immersion parents pursued this ideal with their children successfully over several years, but in the last few years they have encountered some (large) bumps along the way:

- Funding cuts and the removal of class size caps in the last few years have increased class sizes for both English stream and French stream students across the district,

- District staff positions that coordinated the French Immersion program were cut,

-The Ministry of Education added new provincial exams in grade 10 and 11 where French learning resources that matched the provincial exams were not in place,

- The demographics of an ageing population became a reality as experienced teachers started to retire, and

- A nationwide shortage of the supply of French teachers (with specific discipline specializations such as math) started to emerge.

The end results of the increasing bulge in enrolment, teacher shortage and new provincial exams was the prefect storm for the first large group of elementary students that converged into the French immersion high school a few years ago. Long term planning for French Immersion enrolments was not handled well for by the district and resulted in large high school classes of up to 34 students. This affected teacher morale, the quality of student learning, and increased tension between administrators, teachers, and parents. This stress was further magnified by the inability to replace French immersion teachers who had to go on leave this year in several high school grades. French immersion students were taught in English for some of their subjects but then some were expected to write their exam in French.

These events emphasized the need to pro-actively look at long term planning issues for French Immersion. Sadly, parents have been lobbying the district for a couple of years, to pay attention to these issues and have been told that things are being looked after or things are fine. Letters were written, board presentations were made, and many a PAC meeting’s agenda was taken up discussing these issues without being able to move forward. The prevailing environment has been not to include parents as partners in educational planning nor accord them any educational planning credibility.

Farcically, parents are regularly invited to attend Ministry sponsored technically impressive web casts where the honourable Minister of Education speaks about things like how crucial parent involvement is, and “perfect” districts where principals, teachers, and parents are truly engaged in dialogue are showcased. These presentations are usually peppered with PR messages on the wonderful things happening in K-12 education in BC. Although these sessions are supposed to stimulate parent and staff discussions locally, inevitably the Web cast hosts are long on their glowing speeches and short on the scheduled short breaks for local district discussions. The discussion breaks are shortened even further as the hosts go overtime and carry on with their on-camera love-in.

School Planning Councils (SPC) are still largely rubber stamp exercises for parents in this district. Many administrators have been well trained in avoiding meaningful consultation with parents. The debates and decisions occur elsewhere and parents are invited to sign-off without the benefit of being part of the relevant discussions or of having any real input into the decisions. Teachers in this district have not participated in SPC since its inception, and “Parking lot” parent advisory committees (PLACs) are alive and well in Nanaimo as parents discuss what didn’t happen at the PAC. And more recently, the French immersion parent community was once again on the outside looking in as a recent report on creating a French Advisory Committee was written without parents being consulted.