New Westminster parents have an extra month to wrap their head around proposed changes to the school district’s French immersion registration process.
Staff has recommended the district move away from a first-come, first-served system to an annual lottery, but the board’s education policy and planning committee voted last Tuesday to table the recommendation until next month.
“There was a sense from some community members, in particular the Canadian Parents for French, that this had come up rather quickly and some additional time would be appreciated,” board chair Jonina Campbell told the Record.
According to a staff report presented Tuesday, the recommended changes were sparked by parent frustration with the current system, which allows parents to register their children as soon as they have birth certificates.
“One of the concerns raised was that the current system favours longer‐term New Westminster residents and children born earlier in a calendar year,” stated the report.
Even if the proposed changes are eventually approved, however, the district won’t jettison registrations already on the books, as students whose applications are submitted before June 30 will be exempt from the new process.
The same goes for kids born before the end of 2015.
“For the next five years, the first spots will go to siblings and then those on the waitlist,” Campbell said, “and then if there’s spaces available, it would be lottery, until we get to that next cohort, where it will be all lottery.”
Some at the last week’s meeting questioned why the board wasn’t considering shutting down the waitlist and moving to a randomized draw right away if a lottery was more fair, but Campbell told the Record that wouldn’t be the right thing to do.
“We have to be true to a commitment we gave people,” she said. “The board had a process. Parents participated in that process, and for us to change that on them midway is not very honourable.”
The education policy and planning committee will vote on the recommendations – which also include the creation of special French immersion catchments for New West’s three early French immersion schools – on June 2.
If approved, the whole board will vote on the proposed changes at a public board meeting June 30.
To see the report and recommendations, visit district.sd40.bc.ca/node/3648 and click on the Education Policy & Planning Committee’s May 5 agenda.
