Je me souviens...

The goal of the French Immersion program in BC is to provide the kids of non-francophone parents with the opportunity to become bilingual in English and French. This BC educational choice program is funded by the provincial ministry and is eligible for a federal funding supplement as defined by the French Federal Funding Guide. Also eligible for supplementary funding is the Core French program (French as a Second Language or FSL) which is offered to what is commonly known as “English stream” students.

The formula for French immersion and Core French is complex with per student or full-time student grants offered separately and in combination to support one or both programs. What is clear though, is that the French Immersion grants are significantly higher that those of the Core French program.

What is the distinction between French immersion and Core French? French Immersion students take considerably more courses in French than Core French students. The Ministry breaks it down in their French Immersion policy as outlined in the table on the left.

At a course level, French Immersion students in Nanaimo are required to take the courses in French in high school with provincially examinable courses marked in red. (listed on the right)

French immersion courses are all required courses whereas Core French courses, in high school, are electives which can be substituted for other second languages such as Japanese, Spanish, etc.... Moreover, the French language learning outcomes for French immersion students are more challenging than those of the Core French language classes.

Because they are required to take so many courses in French, French Immersion students rely significantly on the quality of the French Immersion program, as they, unlike English stream students, are unable to get the primary language of instruction skills (for the majority of their academic subjects) outside of school from their parents or community and are unable to substitute one course requirement with another alternative.

In many respects in Nanaimo, there is less choice in this choice program at the secondary level: less choice in the teachers that they have, less choice in the schools that they can attend, and altogether fewer available electives.

According to the funding guide financial reports for Nanaimo Ladysmith school district 68, district spending on the French Immersion and French Core program was halved in 2004-2005 despite an increase in French Immersion enrolment, and steady French core enrolments. This drop in funding was not explained in the report, was not reviewed by the district board, nor did the Ministry request clarification despite parents raising French immersion concerns to the district board several times last year.

The accounting in the financial reports for the French programs leaves much to be desired. The provincial financial reports only provide very high level information, they contain arithmethic errors & duplicate information from previous years, they are inconsistent with district financial statements, they do not offer district process information used in determining the district budget allocations, and they are not linked with the district budget document. Consequently, stakeholders are unable to gather meaningful information on whether the federal and district/provincial moneys were appropriately spent or not.

Despite the statement on page 10 in the Federal Funding Guide that "ALL FEDERAL FUNDS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE MUST BE SPENT ENTIRELY IN SUPPORT OF FRENCH IMMERSION AND CORE FRENCH PROGRAMS", all French Immersion Nanaimo administrators have publicly stated that the federal moneys have been block funded, in other words, spent on items not necessarily related to French immersion or Core French. How can this be?

It seems that the district staff, the school administrators, the district Board, and the Ministry were not watching over these programs. And, it appears, so far, that the newly formed French Program Advisory Committee (FPAC) district representatives are more concerned about embarrassing the district by delving into these issues than they are about examining what happened and learning from it. Will the FPAC district representatives whitewash this information or will they have enough backbone to request…

1) That there is publicly available information and reports that the district Board (or any stakeholder) can look at and fully understand how allocations and expenditures are taking place?

2) That the district staff and Board are accountable to explain and remedy past actions as they are the governing body regardless of who might have been physically occupying key positions at the time of these actions?

3) That there are publicly available guiding principles for district funding allocations for these two programs and a transparent district budget allocation process that is revisited every year by the FPAC?

These are not painless undertakings but they are important to the credibility of the FPAC and the future of the French Immersion and Core French programs.

Whitewash or no whitewash those who lived through these periods will remember.