Reactions vary on French changes
SUSSEX -
Parents frustrated by the changes to French education plan to make themselves heard. Several busloads of parents will converge on the Legislature Thursday in a rally organized by Canadian Parents for French, a 1,500-member organization for parents advocating French second language education.
There'll be a bus picking up Sussex parents at 10 a.m. Thursday at the CPF office on Church Avenue. It holds 47 people. Seven other buses like it, and three smaller ones, will take parents from around the province to the Fredericton rally, happening between noon and the 1 p.m. opening of Legislature. Thursday night, CBC hosts an event at Capitol Theatre in Moncton to provide another public forum on the issue.
"A lot of people just couldn't believe the government in a bilingual provincial could do that," said Jane Keith, executive director of CPF. She doesn't believe the provincial government anticipated such an impassioned response.
In the days between the Feb. 27 release of the government-commissioned Croll-Lee report and Education Minister Kelly Lamrock's March 14 announcement, about 150 emails and letters were submitted to the province about the report and its recommendations.
On Facebook, an online social networking site, a site entitled Save French Immersion in New Brunswick had 2,114 members by last Thursday afternoon while another site, Save Early French Immersion in Canada's Only Bilingual Province, had 2,942 members.
Kings East MLA Bruce Northrup said he and education critic Madeline Dube were the only members of the Opposition permitted at Lamrock's March 14 press conference and they were shocked he'd cancel immersion for the upcoming school year.
"We had no idea he'd wipe it out and make the only bilingual province the laughing stock of Canada," Northrup said, noting the matter is on the Legislature agenda for Thursday.
Last week Bob Bernier, a retired teacher who first advocated French immersion in Sussex-area schools, met with Lamrock a few days after resigning as president of the Kings East Liberal Association.
"I no longer want to be affiliated with a party which will go down in history as the party responsible for the demise of immersion in the province," Bernier wrote in his resignation letter.
He said Lamrock told him the district superintendents and the chairperson of each of the eight anglophone District Education Councils supported his decision to cut early immersion and implement the Croll-Lee recommendations.
Students who've already begun the early immersion program will be "grandfathered" through to the end of high school.
Lamrock's announcement came as districts were about to evaluate their hiring needs for the next school year. District 6 has teachers who'll be retiring, those who'll be out on leave and several who were on one-year contracts ending in June.
"We are hopeful that we will have jobs for our Grade 1 immersion teachers who are regular permanent employees," said District 6 superintendent Zoë Watson. "I am not in a position to guarantee that. However I know that each year we hire many French immersion teachers and often struggle to find enough FI teachers."
Last year the introduction of Grade 5 intensive French to several district schools in April created a bit of a staffing scramble. Intensive French is in its second year as an optional program in Hampton, Belleisle and Macdonald Consolidated schools and its first year as a mandatory program in Apohaqui, Sussex, Sussex Corner and Rothesay elementary schools.
Watson is optimistic the programs outlined in the Croll-Lee report will create a "universally accessible system" to better serve all students, and stressed no one is arguing against bilingualism or the importance of learning French.
"For the benefit of all students, it is now important for all to work together to implement the changes as set out by the minister," she said.
"I was baffled ... now I'm just plain angry," says one parent
SUSSEX "I didn't write letters or call the radio station because I didn't think it would happen I thought it was a bunch of talk," Shawnee McConchie says of her initial reaction to a provincial language education review released Feb. 27 that became provincial policy 16 days later.
Her comments were echoed by several parents in Sussex last week.
McConchie has a child in Grade 2 French immersion at Sussex Elementary School and toddler twins whom she assumed would follow in their sister's footsteps in immersion.
"I was baffled when the report came out, now I'm just plain angry," she said. Since March 14 she has sent daily emails to Education Minister Kelly Lamrock and Premier Shawn Graham expressing her outrage.
Penobsquis mother Chrissy McLeod has been balancing a lot of responsibilities and expectations lately and Lamrock's announcement upset at least two important ones.
McLeod took early immersion from Grades 1-12 and is majoring in French at the University of New Brunswick. She graduates in April and had intended to be an early immersion teacher in New Brunswick. She has a nine-year-old in immersion but her five-year-old, enrolled to start immersion in September, won't get that opportunity.
One major expectation Lamrock's decision hasn't quashed for McLeod is the impending delivery of her third child in April. With exams and a baby to prepare for, she's not joining any protests at the moment.
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
Comments (1)
All comments are subject to the site Terms of Use. For a full commenting tutorial click here.
Our editorial team relies on filtering technology and our visitor community to identify inappropriate comments. In the event that a site user has submitted offensive content that has evaded our filter, please select the option to Flag As Inappropriate presented within the comment. Thank you for helping to keep this site clean.