In New Westminster, it seems, it’s the debate that never ends: How do you offer a fair and equitable registration system for French immersion?
As our front-page story reveals, the existing system – in which parents can add their child to a waitlist the moment they have a birth certificate in hand – isn’t sitting well with a lot of folks.
People are concerned that it discriminates against new residents or against those whose children are born later in the year – not to mention those who simply aren’t in the know about the need to think about French immersion well before your child has even mastered the fine art of rolling over.
So is there a better alternative? Twelve years ago, the Record was on hand in the parking lot at New Westminster Secondary School, interviewing parents who were camping out overnight to get their children into the first early French immersion classes in the district. Do we want to turn back the clock to those days? Or do we want to find some kind of a new system – a first-come, first-served online system, perhaps? A lottery that leaves it to luck?
Regardless of how you choose to offer registration, the system will inevitably end up discriminating against someone.
Perhaps the issue is not so much one of the chosen registration system but of whether the program itself is large enough to fill demand. As Glyn Lewis of Canadian Parents for French pointed out, school districts need to ensure they are offering enough spaces to meet families’ needs in the first place.
We know that’s a fine line for the school district to walk, especially in this era of budget restraint – when offering more spaces for French immersion would inevitably cause a squeeze somewhere else.
But it seems clear that we need a new solution – and soon.
