An enrolment cap will not be placed on students entering the French immersion stream at schools in the Upper Grand District School Board (UGDSB), trustees ruled on Jan. 13.
Although an immediate solution is needed to address capacity issues at Edward Johnson Public School in Guelph, at this point, an enrolment cap would not be in place in time for junior kindergarten registration.
UGDSB communications officer Maggie McFadzen said it just wasn’t seen as a realistic option by the board.
“The trustees don’t like it, parents don’t like it either,” she said.
“They are registering the first week of February and we would have to put caps on a variety of different schools, we can’t just cap it at one school.”
Although overall enrolment in the UGDSB has been declining, the elementary French immersion program has seen an average annual growth of seven per cent, or 200 students, according to a staff report.
In October 2014 there were nearly 4,000 students registered in the program with one in three new JK students in Guelph selecting the French immersion stream.
“More and more people are bringing their JK kids to us and saying I want an French immersion education for this child because they’re looking to have their children compete in the real world,” McFadzen says.
“Having French instruction and being a Canadian is a useful thing.”
Currently Edward Johnson, a K-6 French immersion school, is seeing an influx of 100 students per year, which is overwhelming the facility that already has six portables and a four-room portapack.
“We have to do something right away because we have too many bodies at Edward Johnson,” said McFadzen.
In terms of tackling the capacity issues, four remaining options are being considered, including temporary use of former Tytler Public School and transferring some students to Ecole King George Public School.
Tytler PS was closed three years ago and is currently utilized by a number of community groups for pre-school programming and other neighbourhood activities.
“We’re going to try and not move students who have moved before, but we have a lot of things to consider,” says McFadzen.
“We’ve just provided [trustees] with options of what we can do, based on our current enrolment and our enrolment projections.”
A decision on the remaining options will be made at a board meeting on Feb. 10.
The resolution will be an interim accommodation until completion of the new Couling Crescent school set to open in 2016 or 2017 in Guelph’s east end.
The new school will accommodate around 500 students and require another boundary reevaluation.
Trustees also voted to appoint five members to a committee tasked with establishing the terms of reference for a review of the French Immersion program by March and develop a management strategy by December 2015.
