Mais oui!
A high school French Immersion (FI) program will soon be available to Halton’s Catholic students.
In Oakville, St. Ignatius of Loyola will be home to the program, which will begin offering Grade 9 classes in September 2021.
Students will take 10 compulsory high school credits in French, including language, history, geography and religion courses, to earn a French Immersion certificate.
The program will also be available at secondary schools in Burlington, Milton and Georgetown.
Each high school may also offer electives taught in French, depending on student demand and teacher availability.
“The planning has been underway for many years and we’re excited to be able to offer this new program,” superintendent Jeff Crowell told Halton Catholic school board trustees at their meeting on Nov. 3.
The board is hosting a virtual FI information night for Grade 8 parents on Nov. 12.
There are currently seven Grade 8 FI classes in Halton, including two in Oakville.
Oakville trustee Helena Karabela said the report was welcome: “Parents have been waiting for it and are very happy with it.”
Plans for elementary program unclear
But families interested in the board’s elementary French Immersion program are still waiting for information about what the future might look like for them.
Oakville mother Natalie Cambone made a delegation to the board on Tuesday night, asking for information on plans for the program.
Cambone is co-chair of the school council at St. Mary, the only Catholic elementary school in Oakville that offers a FI program.
The board has established one elementary immersion program in each Halton municipality, and limits entry to two Grade 1 classes, or 46 students, each year.
Lottery system for spots
Students are selected through a lottery system. Families can register for the lottery on the board’s website between Nov. 9 to 20 this year.
Last February, facing a significant increase in demand, trustees opted to add an extra two Grade 1 FI classes in each municipality.
But the board decided future growth of the program would require a boundary review to determine where additional classes could be placed.
While no boundary review has been undertaken this year, Cambone urged the board to continue its progress on expanding the program by allowing the director of education to identify new FI school sites.
“I hope COVID is not used an excuse to stall the work on expanding French immersion,” she said.
“Parents have advocated year over year. It is time to grow at a pace which is manageable before it is too late.”
Demand not only factor, says director
Arguing that 46 spaces per municipality is simply too few, Cambone noted that 122 Oakville students registered for the program last year.
But Pat Daly, the board’s director of education, noted that “demand, in and of itself, isn’t the only factor” in deciding whether to expand the program.
He identified the challenge of finding enough qualified FI teachers, as well as the current issue of determining school site enrolment.
Parity among the municipalities is also an issue, with crowded schools in Milton and Oakville making the possibility of expansion more problematic.
“I can tell you having just participated in a boundary review, there is no room in Milton,” argued Patrick Murphy, one of two trustees representing that area. “Status quo is, and remains, two classrooms per region.”
But failing to meet parental demand may drive students out of the Catholic board, warned Cambone.
“How many Catholics have we lost to the public board and how many more are you willing to lose?”
Citing statistics from the organization Canadian Parents for French (CPF), she said Halton’s public school board had 21 per cent of its students enrolled in FI in 2018/19.
"How many Catholics have we lost to the public board, and how many more are you willing to lose?" she asked.
After a motion from Trustee Karabela calling for a staff report into the plans for future FI growth failed, trustees voted to simply accept the information provided by Cambone.