Program worth saving

It was good to see that the Northwest Catholic District School Board didn’t immediately pull the plug on its French Immersion program at last night’s meeting.
Whether or not it can still be saved, however, remains to be seen.
French Immersion was on life support last year when less than 20 students—the benchmark the board said was needed to make the program viable—enrolled for French senior kindergarten for the 2004-05 school year.
But after an outcry from parents and groups like the local chapter of Canadian Parents for French, the Catholic board relented and let French Immersion survive one more year.
There are some valid arguments for letting French Immersion die off. The cold hard fact remains that enrolment just isn’t what it needs to be, especially given the high attrition rates in the early grades.
As well, there’s a widespread—and justified—concern over the lack of qualified French Immersion teachers in the province, and how difficult it may be to convince those who are available to come to Fort Frances.
But judging by comments made at last night’s meeting, there remains a strong commitment among some trustees (particularly those representing Fort Frances) to keep French Immersion going regardless if the 20-student threshold is met.
They say the board’s wavering commitment to the program each spring scares off parents of potential pupils, which hurts enrolment. Nor has the board, they argue, made a concerted effort to find out why attrition rates are so high among the younger students.
There’s also a fear that phasing out French Immersion beginning this fall will cause those teachers who already are here to perhaps jump ship before the program fully winds down in June, 2013, or that parents will pull out their children and perhaps enroll them with the local public school board instead.
What’s more, having French Immersion available in our community actually may give new families one more reason to relocate to Fort Frances—and reverse the steady population decline of this area (and hence future enrolment).
The simple fact is that French Immersion is a valuable program that offers children a huge advantage when it comes to looking for a career down the road, particularly in a bilingual country like Canada.
As well, the successful six-day exchange here last week between the local Grade 7/8 French Immersion class at St. Francis and one from Montreal demonstrated the cultural benefits of being able to converse with fellow Canadians in their mother tongues.
The local Catholic school board certainly faces a tough decision in the coming month, but hopefully trustees will see the benefits outweigh the costs when it comes to offering French Immersion. And frankly, once a program is cancelled, it’s very difficult to resurrect it again if circumstances should change down the road.