Changes to French immersion in Waterloo region public schools approved by trustees

The way French immersion is delivered in Waterloo region's public schools will change in 2023, including that entry to the program will be moved to Grade 2 for fall 2024.

On Monday night, trustees with the Waterloo Region District School Board voted in favour of ratifying a decision they made a week earlier. Trusteesapproved recommendations from a committee that was created to review the program.

Three recommendations were brought to trustees last week:

• Approve vision, goals and guiding principles that French immersion is open to everyone.
• Develop "an action plan" to bring the program into alignment with the vision, goals and guiding principles.
• Start French immersion in Grade 2, rather than Grade 1.

The trustees heard from some parents who were upset with the changes, including Heather Henderson who has two children in the public school board. She said the recommendations did not address other issues with the program, including the learning environment in dual-track schools where English and French immersion classes are held.

Henderson said there is an "immense division" between the French and English tracks and said social and academic integration plans are needed.

"We must stop relying on the generosity of parents and teachers to run extracurricular activities as a sole means of integrating," she said.

"Guitar clubs are simply not enough. The divide within dual-track schools runs so much deeper than this."

Trustees voted in favour of the changes to French immersion while also acknowledging the plan wasn't perfect.

Trustee Carol Millar said she understood that "this was not the end. This was just the end of this committee and work will continue and be ongoing and that was very encouraging to me."

Trustee Laurie Tremble, who sat on the French immersion committee, said she heard concerns at the committee and from the parents.

"I think we have to now let staff do their work to address some of those concerns," Tremble said. "The longer we wait and discuss at the committee level, the longer before we can even start to make some of those changes."