Families see chaos on wrong side of French immersion
Students with special needs shifted to regular classrooms, parents say
WATERLOO REGION — Meet five parents who say their children’s education has been compromised by a French immersion program they do not attend.
Their children study in regular classrooms, inside divided schools where schoolmates are immersed in French for half the day.
While schoolmates thrive in highperforming classrooms with few students with special needs, their children are relegated to the lowest-performing classrooms, with up to three times as many children who need extra help.
Frustrated, parents are calling on the public school board to restore balance and equity to classrooms.
“This isn’t about language. I’m all for language education, and kids in both programs are being taught French from Grade 1,” said Anne Hunsberger, a lawyer.
But as French immersion expands “it completely changes the composition of the English class. That’s my concern.”
Her three children have attended Lester B. Pearson Public School, where immersion students are 24 per cent more likely than regular students to achieve provincial standards across
reading, writing and math.
A big problem, parents say, is that some teachers can’t handle student needs that spill into regular classrooms when immersion classrooms don’t accommodate those needs.
Celene Lecompte points to her daughter’s regular classroom at Elizabeth Ziegler Public School, where most students are in immersion.
“Her classroom this year was very chaotic,” said Lecompte, a local business owner. “The children had such a wide variety of needs that it made it impossible for the teacher to meet all those needs. There were days where she didn’t learn anything.”
Immersion students at Elizabeth Ziegler achieve provincial standards in reading, writing and math almost twice as often as regular students.
Lecompte’s daughter tries to help her struggling classmates, but this takes time away from her own advancement. Lecompte hires tutors to compensate.
Kim Hutton-Myke, a dental hygienist and school volunteer, points to her daughter’s eyeopening experience attending Grade 7 at MacGregor Public School, which has French immersion.
Her daughter reached MacGregor from an elementary school that does not have French immersion. She was startled by the poor motivation of her MacGregor classmates, and she saw a large number of challenges inside her classroom.
Later, she told her mother: “I wish I had gone to French immersion because all the good kids are in French immersion.” By good, she meant nice, smart and sporty.
Pui Ming Leung says her daughter has come home from Elizabeth Ziegler to complain: “The class was so chaotic today. That’s why the teachers could not go ahead with the planned activities.”
It bothers parents that French immersion segregates students, creating divisions that extend into hallways and playgrounds. “It’s very difficult for us to make friends,” said Leung, who volunteers at Elizabeth Ziegler and is on its parent council.
Leung’s family immigrated from China. They are trying to integrate but it’s made harder by the separation of teaching streams inside their children’s school and neighbourhood.
Families in French immersion are friendly and welcoming, Leung said, but “it’s still a barrier. Our children are not playing together, they don’t know each other.”
Parents say children in regular classrooms are seen as lesser lights. It grates on them.
“People seem very surprised that our kids are not in French immersion,” said Heather Henderson, a psychology professor at the University of Waterloo whose daughter attends at Elizabeth Ziegler.
“That affects us and I can’t believe it doesn’t affect our kids. I just think there are these biases that our community has about the (immersion) program that are getting communicated in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
“I think there are a lot of assumptions about families in (regular classrooms) that really make me upset.”
Hunsberger figures too many parents put their children in immersion “because they believe that it’s an elitist program and they want the status for their kids.” That’s the wrong reason, she argues, and yet it seems to her like the school board is catering to them.
Grade 3 test results are consistent with parent arguments. Test results, withheld from the public until The Record filed a Freedomof-Information request, reveal three tiers of classroom performance at the Waterloo Region District School Board:
• French immersion classrooms are tops: 78 per cent of students meet provincial standards across reading, writing and math inside 34 schools that offer immersion.
• Middling classrooms are inside 53 schools with no French immersion: 60 per cent of students meet provincial standards.
• The lowest classrooms are the ones providing regular instruction inside 34 schools shared with French immersion: 52 per cent of students meet provincial standards.
The school board says just eight per cent of immersion students require individual attention compared to 21 per cent of regular students.
The Ministry of Education reports almost the same across Ontario. Regular classrooms have twice the children with special needs compared to French immersion classrooms.
“If a kid in the immersion program is struggling academically, they’re encouraged to leave and go to English,” Hunsberger said. “If a kid in immersion has serious behavioural issues, they’re encouraged to go to English. They’re not dealt with in the immersion program.
“I don’t mind my kids being in a class like that, learning tolerance and being around a whole cross-section of kids,” she said.
But there’s a tipping point and “then you really have to question the composition of that English class. From a social perspective, from an academic perspective, from a behavioural perspective, who is your daughter with?”
French immersion draws more than one in four Grade 1 students. This has caused staffing and planning challenges.
It is not meant to be an elite program but is open to all and aims to develop French skills, the board says.
“We respect and acknowledge that there is a gap (in teaching streams) that we need to continue our work toward closing,” said Alana Russell, spokesperson for the public school board.
To help do this, the board hopes to persuade parents and educators to keep children who struggle or have needs in immersion classrooms, instead of transferring them into regular classrooms.
Parents who see their children affected by French immersion say the program has gone wrong. They point to vague language goals that fall short of bilingualism, to high attrition that sees two-thirds of students abandon immersion by high school, to divided schools, and to the fallout on regular classrooms.
Parents recommend mixing the teaching streams more often, for example by holding joint classes in art or music or gym.
“Don’t let it ever get that separated. I care as much about the social outcome as I care about the academic,” Henderson said.
One suggestion is to settle French immersion into standalone magnet schools. Another is to provide more entry points into immersion beyond Grade 1. Some other boards do that.
Parents are also calling on the board to enhance regular instruction and promote it.