A caring, community school is threatened

To the editor:

I am writing out of concern for the state of the French immersion program at Dwight Ross Elementary (DRES) in Greenwood.

My daughter is currently enrolled in the pre-primary program at DRES and we have every hope of enrolling her in immersion in the fall. I am therefore disappointed to learn of the proposed amalgamation with Kingston Elementary’s French immersion program.

My daughter and I are very comfortable and happy at DRES, and were very much looking forward to starting immersion in a school with which she is already familiar.

We live in the military quarters area of Greenwood, and are therefore in the DRES catchement area but, according to this proposal, we would need to drive our child to Kingston every day to learn a second language. This is an undue and unnecessary hardship on military families and reflects a lack of understanding on the part of policy makers as to our way of life. A French education and bilingualism is a necessity for our children, when there is every likelihood we will be posed to a French-speaking community.

I hope the school board and government will look at this situation and amend their decision to amalgamate DRES and Kingston programs. I understand there are some long-standing boundary issues in the Kingston/ Greenwood area that do not properly reflect the current situation. Hopefully, these can be addressed to better mirror the growth of Greenwood and area.

It would be unfortunate for Greenwood to lose its wonderful school. Phasing out the immersion program would be detrimental to the school as a whole: both French and English students would lose resources and opportunities.

I hope my daughter and her two younger brothers will have the opportunity to attend Dwight Ross in the French immersion program, and receive the benefit of a caring and nurturing community school education.

Thank you,

Carolyn Hines

Greenwood