There won't be another French immersion class at Herbert Spencer Elementary school this fall, despite a staff recommendation to add the class.
The board of education talked about it at Tuesday's committee meeting, but not a single trustee moved a motion to bring in another class.
"We discussed that at great length with a number of parents, and what we did was not make a decision," board of education chair James Janzen said. "We decided not to make a recommendation to the board. Essentially that means it won't happen."
The board did call for public feedback on the motion last month and heard from several parents and even teachers at the school who strongly opposed having another class at the school that they consider to already be overcrowded. Concerns included the number of children on the playground, access to resources and increased traffic in the neighbourhood. Currently, there are three portable classrooms on the Herbert Spencer site.
Sandra Pace, the district's director of instruction and student learning, said in a report that a fourth French immersion kindergarten class, the second at Spencer, would satisfy the Canadian Parents for French, please some parents and would ease crowding in the regular program kindergarten classes at some schools.
She said that enrolment at the in-demand school is still expected to drop in the coming years. Spencer has a current capacity of 506 students. This year it has 471 students, which puts it at 93 per cent utilization. The Education Ministry considers minimum utilization to be 95 per cent and optimal 110 per cent, Pace's report states.
This is the second year in a row staff has recommended adding a class at the school.
