At the VSB Committee III (Education and Student Services) meeting tonight [May 31, 2017] Gord Lau, PAC chair at Trafalgar, presented parent concerns about the school board’s decision to reduce by five the total number of French Immersion kindergarten classes across the district in the coming school year. (Trafalgar, Lord Tennyson, Lord Selkirk, Hastings and L’Ecole Bilingue are the schools directly affected.) Following the parent presentation, Adrian Keough, VSB Director of Instruction, spoke about the background to the decision to cut FI kindergarten enrollment (presentation attached -“op_commIII_item2”).
There wasn’t any sense that the VSB would revisit this decision, but there was an effort made to reassure parents that this is a short term measure in response to specific issues around the speed of implementation of the restored class size and composition rules, and the challenges in engaging qualified staff. Staff and the official trustee also spoke of the district’s long-term commitment to a healthy French Immersion program, which remains in high demand.
VSB staff reminded parents at tonight’s meeting that as part of the VSB’s five-year strategic plan, choice programs such as French Immersion and school catchment areas are up for review next year. Given the current disconnects between demand and capacity, there may well be room to reduce pressure on over-enrolled schools and to find alternatives to closing schools with underutilized space by making adjustments both to catchment areas and to where choice programs are offered.
One parent present invited the VSB to consider using swing spaces not being used for seismic upgrades this year to house the five kindergarten FI classes next year, should another upgrade not be in process by then.
Any parent/guardian wishing to remain current about this is welcome to join the issue-specific mailing list set up by the Trafalgar PAC via http://trafalgarpac.ca/fi-kindergarten-issue/.
Also attached (“op_commI_item3”) is a staff presentation to VSB Committee I (Management Coordinating Committee) from earlier this week giving the larger picture of current K-12 enrollment issues in the district. This is worth a look as it also provides a wider context for Hudson’s current struggles to find space for in-catchment students for the regular English program. The report is slightly out of date as Mr. Cannon has confirmed that there will be a second Hudson English Kindergarten next year, so Table 2 should show 40 2017-2018 Kindergarten spaces for Hudson rather than 20.
Encouraging the VSB (staff and appointed trustee) to improve communication with parents throughout the choice program and catchment area reviews will be an important ongoing task for parents, PACs and DPAC. This would avoid repetition of the current situation where a decision was made with minimal public input and announced in a way which alarms parents, and create opportunities for respectful consultation with the public, who, with more understanding of the issues as they develop, could well be the source of some creative solutions.
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We are the Parent Advisory Council (PAC) of a public elementary school located in the heart of Vancouver, BC.