A stand-alone French immersion school could be the best path forward for the program in New Westminster, a consultant’s review has found — but any move in that direction would be years in the making.
Consultant Nancy Brennan made a presentation to New Westminster school trustees at their board meeting Sept. 26, wrapping up a review of School District 40’s programs of choice: French immersion, Montessori and Home Learners.
Brennan spent months consulting with staff, students and families and digging into data to determine what’s working with the programs, what problems they’re facing and what could be done to help them thrive into the future.
Overall satisfaction with all three programs is high, she reported, but the programs also face some challenges.
French immersion, Montessori in high demand
Currently, early French immersion is offered at three elementary schools: Qayqayt, Lord Tweedsmuir and Herbert Spencer, with late French immersion at Glenbrook Middle School. New Westminster Secondary School also has a French immersion stream.
Montessori, meanwhile, is offered at Skwo:wech and Connaught Heights elementary schools.
Brennan said early French immersion and Montessori share similar challenges with high demand for space; both receive about twice as many applications as there are spaces.
Both, however, also suffer from attrition over the elementary school years. The programs start with just one kindergarten class at each site. As students move out of the program or school, classes get smaller — creating an inequity between the program of choice and the much-larger classes in the regular neighbourhood stream.
Brennan suggested the school board could combat that challenge by amalgamating the programs into fewer sites.
For Montessori, she suggested combining the two programs into one site, with two kindergarten classes each year.
“Amalgamation would significantly improve the challenges of attrition, class size inequities, difficulty finding qualified Montessori-trained staff and the cost of resources,” she said. “It would involve some upheaval and displacement for current families, but in the long run would create a much stronger and more viable program.”
‘French milieu’: Is one French school the way forward?
For French immersion, Brennan suggested the best option would ultimately be to open one French immersion school to create a full “French milieu” for students, with bilingual administrators and support staff all focused on one site.
She said such a move would also help to combat the feeling that there isn’t much French presence at the existing EFI schools, and it would help the district to better cope with a shortage of French-speaking teachers and support staff.
But she cautioned it wouldn’t be simple.
“This would mean catchment boundary changes and moving the existing neighbourhood program to another site. It would take several years and involve significant community consultation,” she pointed out.
Brennan suggested the idea could be factored into the district’s long-range facilities planning.
She proposed a more immediate solution: to offer the program at two schools, with two kindergarten classes each year.
Home Learners and more: Other highlights from the review
Brennan’s 62-page report offered numerous suggestions for other potential changes in all three programs. Some highlights:
- The school district should consider offering future programs of choice in Queensborough, which has no current options.
- The district should consider hiring a district administrator responsible for programs of choice.
- Home Learners parents and staff do not feel they are truly recognized as a part of the New Westminster school district; more of a concerted effort should be made to include the program in district notices and events.
- The district should consider increasing the amount of face-to-face, in-person instruction for the Home Learners program.
- Survey respondents expressed interest in other programs of choice, including outdoor/environmental education, Mandarin immersion, fine arts, gifted programs and STEM-focused programs. The report recommends the district focus on supporting its existing programs and not adding other programs “until such time as current capacity issues are resolved.”
SD40 superintendent Karim Hachlaf said Brennan’s “comprehensive” review will now be used to help district staff plan the best way forward, considering resources and capacity pressures in schools.
“This doesn’t represent the end, but the beginning for us to take the recommendations and chart the path towards our future around programs of choice,” he said.
A copy of the full report can be found in the agenda package for the Sept. 26 school board meeting.
📢 SOUND OFF: Is your family part of a program of choice? Is your family part of a school community facing space challenges and capacity pressures? What would you like to see the district do to accommodate all students' needs? Share your thoughts — send us a letter.
