Early French immersion boundary review 2004.
Link to Early French immersion boundary review 2004 background.
As of January 2004, the community west of Granville and south of 33rd where most of Quilchena's students have come from, was changed from having three early FI schools Quilchena, Kerrisdale and Trafalgar to having one early FI school, Kerrisdale, with a capacity of 1 or 2 K classes. Kerrisdale is a startup program with a lead grade 1 class in 2003-04. There are reported to be a number of students from the subject area who are cross boundary at Queen Elizabeth annex, including students from the closed Kerrisdale 2003-04 grade 2 lead class.
Quilchena FI now serves an area that is geographically majority east of Granville.
There was a proposal when early FI boundaries were introduced for September 2001 (after the public consultation process was closed), as the applications at Quilchena were enough for 2 K classes and the VSB said this could not be done at Quilchena (there were contrary opinions that it could be managed at Quilchena), that the Quilchena early FI program move to Osler or Jamieson, east of Granville. As most of the students at Quilchena came from west of Granville this was objected to, and the VSB instead offered Kerrisdale as a place where there could be 2 K classes. At the time, Quilchena PAC were proposing to raise a large amount of money for an outdoor classroom and replacement playground equipment. Quilchena parents asked the VSB if opening Kerrisdale for their area meant Quilchena would be closed for their area. Quilchena parents thought if Quilchena would be closed for their area they might hold off on fundraising for the project as there might be something more long lasting for their area's French immersion students they could fund (like enhancing a new early FI library at Kerrisdale). The VSB assured the Quilchena parents that Quilchena would not be closed for their area and to continue with the fundraising for an outdoor classroom and replacement playgrounds.
There was support, at the special request January 2004 Quilchena PAC meeting about early FI boundary review, for the boundary between Quilchena and Kerrisdale to be Larch instead of Arbutus, and West Boulevard or Arbutus instead of Granville. If there is sufficient demand for early FI, it might be that the communities could support 2 K classes at a school east of Granville, 1 K class at Quilchena (with a boundary say from Granville to Arbutus/Larch) and 2 K classes at Kerrisdale.
If there is support for 2, not 3 classes of early FI west of Granville, at the special request January 2004 Quilchena PAC meeting about early FI boundary review, the question was raised, that if the English stream numbers at Quilchena continue to be very small, it might be worthwhile investigating moving the English stream to Kerrisdale and having the early FI program at Kerrisdale move to Quilchena and form a French immersion centre, instead of a dual track school at Kerrisdale. This assumes an early French immersion program could also be started up at a school east of Granville. If there is support for 3 classes of early FI west of Granville and the French immersion centre at Quilchena was viable, perhaps a French immersion centre annex to Quilchena at Kerrisdale annex could be investigated.
Quilchena early FI began as an annex to Trafalgar. The leading class successfully lobbied the VSB to have the program continue to grade 7 at Quilchena. The leading class graduated from high school a few years ago, so assuming the portables at Quilchena have been there since at least the lead class being at grade 4, estimates are the portables have been at Quilchena for over 15 years.
In Sep. 2000 when the VSB proposed that Quilchena be an annex to Trafalgar
(this proposal was dropped), there were many reasons for opposition from
Quilchena, two were:
1. no intermediate grade reading buddies for primary grades
2. Trafalgar's location was too far for the significant number of Quilchena
families that came from south of 49th and west of Granville.
3. the community south of 33rd and west of Granville (that had long
been a major supporter of Quilchena FI Kindergarten) felt it was important
to have FI K to 7
available south of 33rd and west of Granville.
As a result of the history of possible annex to Trafalgar and parental preference for K to 7 early FI located west of Granville, south of 33rd, there is concern that the startup at Kerrisdale not be changed to an annex to Trafalgar.
At the special request January 2004 Quilchena PAC meeting about early FI boundary review, the VSB said the FI program at Kerrisdale would be K to 7 with Churchill as the secondary FI school.
There is some speculation, due to the news that the Francophone secondary program at Kitsilano is moving to a new Francophone school being built near Eric Hamber/Oakridge that will also serve as a kind of Francophone community centre and completion is scheduled for Sep. 2006, that when the Francophone secondary program vacates Kitsilano, the Kerrisdale secondary FI program may be changed from Churchill to Kitsilano.
Regarding concerns raised during the early FI boundary review 2004 about the intermediate program numbers at Quilchena, note:
- that when early FI boundaries were introduced in Sep. 2001, the boundaries were supposed to help solve a past problem of large numbers of students transferring from one early FI school to another and leaving weak intermediate numbers at their previous school. For example:
- the grade 7 class of 2001 that was at Jules Quesnel
had a large number of students transfer from Jules Quesnel to Trafalgar
for grade 5 to 7 as they had
a problem at Jules Quesnel.
- a grade 7 class a few years before 2001 at Quilchena
had a large number of students transfer from Quilchena to Trafalgar for
grade 5 to 7 as they had
a problem at Quilchena with teachers (those teachers
subsequently left Quilchena).
- that although the VSB has recently not been allowing a full FI K and split K/1 at Quilchena, it has allowed a few students to start early FI at grade 1 at Quilchena, which does help intermediate numbers.
Regarding - there was a proposal when early FI boundaries were introduced for September 2001 (after the public consultation process was closed), as the applications at Quilchena were enough for 2 K classes and the VSB said this could not be done at Quilchena (there were contrary opinions that it could be managed at Quilchena), that the Quilchena early FI program move to Osler or Jamieson, east of Granville. As most of the students at Quilchena came from west of Granville this was objected to, and the VSB instead offered Kerrisdale as a place where there could be 2 K classes:
- there was speculation that as the VSB had raised concern about portables at Quilchena, but not about portables at Trafalgar or Kerrisdale annex,
- that one reason for the proposal that Quilchena become an annex to Trafalgar was to remove the portables
or
- that one reason to suggest
Quilchena FI move to Jamieson was then the Jamieson middle Mandarin immersion
program, which was new and
struggling, could move to
the very popular (for early FI) location of Quilchena and the portables
could be removed as that program is 4 to 7
with half of courses in
Mandarin and half in English.
Regarding the above speculation, note that since before middle immersion Mandarin was started at Jamieson, there were suggestions that early FI include Mandarin or Spanish as a third language from grade 5. The suggestions seemed to be stymied by political issues like:
- in a dual track school such as Quilchena, if the
early FI program had Mandarin as a third language from grade 5, would the
English stream which has French
as a second language from grade 5 choose Mandarin
instead.
- would there be teacher changes required if the
current FI grade 5 teachers teaching French and English were not qualified
to teach Mandarin.
Grade 5 was suggested as this is the grade in the English stream that a second language is introduced, and in the FI stream English is introduced in grade 4.
From the article 'The Academic, Intellectual, and Linguistic Benefits
of Bilingualism' by Jim Cummins, Professor at the Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education
(OISE), published in CPF's 'So You Want Your Child to Learn French!'
Second Revised Edition 1990:
"A third implication of the metalinguistic benefits that bilingualism
COULD promote is that students in immersion programs should be actively
encouraged to expand
their linguistic repertoires to include additional languages at the
secondary level, or earlier if the opportunity presents itself. Swain,
Lapkin, Rowan and Hart (1988)
have shown that immersion students who have already developed literacy
in a heritage language perform significantly better in French than students
who come from
English-only backgrounds. This finding clearly suggests the educational
value of promoting heritage languages, but it also points to the advantage
that immersion
students are likely to have in learning additional languages."
(assuming it would be late immersion students who might have achieved
literacy in a heritage language).
The process of public consultation for changes to the early FI program at Quilchena has 'seemed' not thorough due to the recent history where:
- the VSB emphasized public consultation for the
implementation of early FI boundaries in 2001, and there was public input
that the boundary proposed
for Quilchena Sep. 2001 was too large for Quilchena.
The VSB disagreed and implemented the boundary, then the boundary proved
too large for
Quilchena and the solutions (starting Kerrisdale
and sharing boundaries with Kerrisdale and Trafalgar) were made without
public consultation.
- the Quilchena PAC requested to be consulted during
the early FI boundary review 2004 process and was not, then had to appeal
to the Trustees
for an extension.
Therefore it has 'seemed' the VSB 'might' be managing public consultation by providing as little information to the public as possible. There has been speculation that the VSB might come to better solutions if the public consultation were managed more along the line of the VSB experts research the problem, come up with a solution, then:
- present information to the public about their solution
such as: the information they used and the reasons for their solution recommendations.
- allow time for the public to review this information
and request the public bring forward any information the VSB may not have
been aware of that
might affect the solution recommendations.
- allow time for the VSB to review any new information
if it is brought forward.
If the VSB's view is they have done thorough public consultations, a suggestion is the VSB communicate this better to the public.
There is appreciation among parents that the VSB must juggle many competing interests such as, student needs, budget money, teacher contracts, building facility availability and parent preferences.
A few years ago the Vancouver DPAC (District PAC) invited Fred I. Renihan, Ph.D to speak at Prince of Wales about the problem of school board administrators, teachers and parent groups not working well together, and how research shows that when the administrators, teachers and parents work well together the results are better systems for students.
Information about contacting Fred I. Renihan, Ph.D, who as of February
2004 is Superintendent of School District No. 36 (Surrey), is at:
http://www.surreyconnect.sd36.bc.ca/general/administration.html