Parents line up for hours to access French immersion program for their children

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

There was no mad dash for the door when the clock struck 3:30 p.m. No one elbowing other people out the way. But make no mistake, parents weren’t happy about having to line up on the lawn of Maple Grove Education Centre Wednesday to get their kids into a late French immersion program.

Some likened the process to trying to score tickets to a rock concert. Others said it felt like they were being herded like cattle.

And to top things off, it was raining.

Parents looking to register their children who will be entering Grade 7 in the fall for late French immersion at the school had been told by the Tri-County Regional School Board that because of a cap on student numbers, there weren’t enough spaces in the program to meet the demand. The program can only accommodate one class of 30 students. Thirty-four were looking for a spot.

So following it’s policy, the school board resorted to a first-come, first-serve registration.

Sitting in their camp chairs and holding umbrellas to keep themselves somewhat dry, parents facing a three-and-a-half hour wait for registration said surely there are other options the school board could look at when numbers outweigh demand. One option many parents said the board ought to consider is basing admittance on academics.

The chair of the school board, Faye Haley, has said this isn’t something the board has looked at because there is already a perception that French immersion is a program for the elite – which the board wants to dispel – and it wants to ensure everyone has equal access to the program. But parent Stephanie Surette, who was second in line, said by making registration first come, first serve, the school board is already practicing discrimination.

“They’re discriminating against the single parent who works and can’t came out here to line up for the program,” she said, suggesting academics and recommendations by teachers of whether a student is a good candidate for French immersion are things the board should take into consideration if need be.

Parent Glenda Surette, who has already had two children go through the program, says she recalls that when at least one of her older children went through the program marks did count for something.

“Everybody seemed to be okay with that,” said the mother who was third in line.

At the head of the line was parent Mitzi Fitzgerald who wants her daughter to reap the benefits of an education in French.

“My daughter wants to learn French and she has the drive to do it and I want to support her,” she said, although asked if she would have camped overnight to secure a spot for her daughter she and other mothers said they wouldn’t have.

Which is probably just as well because after hearing that some parents were planning to camp out overnight on the lawn of school, the school board said it might have to call the RCMP on them since it would be a disruption to students attending Maple Grove.

Instead parents were told they could only start lining up at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The doors for registration would open at 7 p.m. On the door the sign read, “Please wait in a line that respects arrival time.”

In other words no butting.

As soon as the parents lined up, in a very orderly manner, parent Ian White suggested they each write a number on their hand representing the order they were in. That way no one would have to worry about not taking a bathroom break or not being able to get up to stretch their legs.

(They did, however, have to sit in the rain for more than an hour, although eventually they were let inside the school to continue their wait in a dry setting.)

As for other opinions from parents on how the school board could handle a situation like this differently, some parents told NovaNewsNew.com/the Vanguard that it didn’t make sense to them that the school board had stated that it is feasible for it to have a class of 16 students in the late French immersion program at Yarmouth Junior High.

If they can have a class of 16 students at one school, parent Debbie Hamilton questioned, why can’t the school board have two classes of 17 at Maple Grove, that way there would be a spot for everyone.

As for the school board’s suggestion that students can always transfer to Yarmouth Junior High to access the program there, the parents who come from many different rural parts of the county said for them that isn’t an option. Transportation becomes an issue. Some parents don’t like the idea of their children being downtown over their lunch hours. And it separates them from their friends.

Said parent Stephanie Surette, it’s one thing to throw students in a new situation like French immersion that they’re not used to, but to throw them in a situation like that in addition to the fact that they don’t know anyone in their class just isn’t fair.

In the end everyone got into the program as only 30 people showed up.

Meanwhile, responding to some of the questions posed by parents, Steven Gaudet, the board's coordinator of French second language, said over the years the school board has worked to make it known that immersion is not an elitist program and that it is open to all students.Which is one reason which grades are not part of the consideration to get into the program.

"Lower academic ability students can learn to speak and understand a second language," he says, albeit it does say in the area of reading and writing, higher academic students may achieve higher levels of competency.

"Teachers are trained to apply appropriate teaching/learning strategies in their classroom to meet the needs of their students," he says. "At this point in time it is not the board's intention to base entrance in late French immersion based on academic ability."

As for complaints that causing parents to line up for hours on a first-come, first-serve basis is discriminatory to some parents – like working or single parents – Gaudet says while the board knows there is likely no time that would meet everyone's needs, people were told that they could have someone stand in for them.