Parlez-vous français? School boards seek French teachers
Education minister acknowledges there is a shortage for French immersion
WATERLOO REGION — Enrolment in French immersion has soared past 7,300 local students but the number of qualified teachers is barely keeping pace.
This is creating a challenge for local school boards that have been adding French immersion classes every year to meet parent demand.
French immersion in grades 1 through 8 requires students to learn in French for half their day.
Elementary enrolment at the Waterloo Region District School Board has soared 38 per cent since 2008, where a quarter of Grade 1 students now study in French immersion at 45 schools.
The Waterloo Catholic School Board is testing French immersion at three schools.
While the public board has recruited enough permanent French immersion teachers, it may soon struggle to find occasional teachers to act as substitutes, spokesperson Nick Manning said.
Education trustees intend to ask the Ministry of Education to help increase the number of qualified French immersion teachers graduating from universities. “The pool is very shallow,” Manning said. He said the public board attracts as few as four candidates for a French immersion job, compared to hundreds for other teaching jobs.
Education Minister Mitzie Hunter said in a statement that the Liberal government will work with education partners “to address challenges with teacher supply.”
“I would love my child to be in French immersion. It’s very important to me,” said Heather Seiling, who wants her son to enrol in French immersion in Grade 1 in September.
“There’s a lot of documented benefit about French immersion and learning a second language.”
Seiling and other parents are lobbying the public board to extend French immersion to Ayr, in North Dumfries.
“There’s definitely a lack of French immersion teachers avail-
able, so it is a stress on the school board, and I understand that,” she said.
If Ayr parents succeed, they won’t have to drive to schools in Cambridge or Kitchener that may have spaces available. Boards won’t bus French immersion students to out-of-boundary schools despite placing them there.
The board says its answer will depend partly on the number of Ayr students that express interest. This won’t be known until March when registration by lottery concludes.
“We will look at all of those requests based on the demand and based on the available resources,” Manning said.
The public school board has added four elementary schools to its French immersion roster in the past two years. The board plans to add another when Groh Public School opens in September.
The Catholic school board has 128 students enrolled in French immersion. This month it is moving to post job notices for French immersion teachers, angling for the best shot at securing the best candidates.
Manning figures parents support French immersion because it feels Canadian, because children learn new languages more easily, and because having a second language helps their children compete for jobs in a global economy.
School boards have to worry about the quality of teaching candidates as well as the number. To assess if candidates possess conversational skills, the public board conducts its interviews partly in French.
“We’ve set a justifiably high bar,” Manning said.
Attrition in French immersion is high. The Record estimates that 40 per cent of public students who entered the program in Grade 1 in 2008 left the program by Grade 8 in 2015. There’s a further sharp decline between Grade 8 and high school.
“In some cases at least, learning in French isn’t suitable,” Manning said. “The flexibility is there for them to change stream.”
Some critics have suggested that French immersion undermines the equality enshrined in public education, by segregating middle-class children from children who are poorer or who have special needs and who are less likely to participate.
Manning said the public board “looks at this as an opportunity to continue to provide the kind of public education that there is demand to provide.”