The school district may add an additional early French immersion kindergarten class at Herbert Spencer Elementary and will consider whether to keep French immersion at John Robson Elementary once the new schools are built.
Trustees voted Tuesday to consult on whether to offer the additional class at the Queen's Park school. The board also voted to have staff report back on whether to keep the French program at Robson once it is relocated to the former Saint Mary's Hospital site and a new middle school is built.
"This would be a one-time only kindergarten at Spencer, not an expansion of the program," said a report from Sandra Pace, the district's director of instruction and student learning. "Opening a fourth French immersion kindergarten class, the second at Spencer, would satisfy the Canadian Parents for French, please some parents, ease crowding in the regular program kindergarten classes at some schools."
Spencer is an in-demand school, but enrolment is still expected to drop in the coming years, according to Pace. Spencer has a current capacity of 506 students. This year it has 471 students, which puts it at 93 per cent utilization, Pace's report states. The Education Ministry considers minimum utilization to be 95 per cent and optimal 110 per cent, Pace wrote.
Pace's report also noted that staff are concerned that adding a new class could impact class size on effect positions within the school. They also sought clarification on funding, she wrote.
Parents were concerned with the number of children on the playground and access to resources such as the library, computer room, music and gym times. Parents and the community worried about additional traffic in the neighbourhood.
The consultation would likely result in "similar themes" arising, Pace said.
Currently, Spencer staggers its lunch times, so that kindergarten students have the entire playground to themselves at lunchtime. At recess, all children are on the playground.
The district had planned to move French immersion from Robson to Lord Kelvin Elementary when a replacement Robson is built.
Trustee Lisa Graham raised the issue of keeping French immersion at Robson at Tuesday's board of education meeting.
"I'm listening to the parents, looking at the current facts before us, and it's something that I'd like to revisit with the board," she told The Record before Tuesday's vote.
