Some important things will be happening this week in our battle with the Department of education. I'll write more after they take place. I borrowed this from an email from a friend.
Why we need to continue the fight.
This fight is winnable however we need more participation. These changes are going to affect the vast majority of students.
The English core students will starting in Sept/08 have NO French language instruction until Grade 5.
The Early French immersion students will have to suffer with a lot less resources. Not all programs within the EFI program have been grandfathered. District 18 have already announced the axing of their summer remedial reading program for French language even though there are still students enrolled in the EFI program. We can expect to hear of more such cuts.
The Early and Late immersion programs will have staffing problems over the next number of years as immersion teachers switch over to the francophone system and the teachers in the lower grades with more seniority began bumping the teachers in the higher grades as each year is fazed out.
Schools are finding it hard now to get French substitute teachers for Immersion students it will become more difficult as fewer new immersion teachers will be coming in the system.
The intensive French model that is being brought forward by Minister Lamrock is not being used as it was designed or is it the same as what was piloted within the school system. The creators of the intensive French model have come out against this decision.
The late French immersion program is now a watered down version of what is currently in place. There will be less instructional time in French as math and science will now be taught in English. With less instructional time in French we can expect lower proficiency scores as a result.
The intensive French program will be very similar to the LFI program as they will include French language arts plus one other subj. (social studies) be taught in French and will be mandatory until grade 12
If you want your child to graduate high school bilingual it will not happen under this new system. The goal of both programs is to attain an intermediate or at best an intermediate plus level. All of the experts in 2nd language instruction that we have talked to concur this goal is overly optimistic. Intermediate plus is considered a threshold level at which “bilingualism” is attainable.
With the changes made to Policy 309 there will be no firm obligation on the districts/schools to maintain any level of French instructional time within the classroom so even the “grandfathered” EFI is not SAFE as it may be watered down as they take teachers away from the immersion programs to teach intensive French
What you can do
Letters to the editor are very affective. They are read by the politicians and considered by political types as a good gauge of public sentiment. Letters must include your Name address telephone number and no more than 250 words in length and can be sent to 'tjletters@telegraphjournal.com'
Letters to your MLA and other party officials especially riding associations. All this info can be found at http://www.nbliberal.ca ask questions that they have to answer in your letters. Ask for a confirmation of receipt
Contact the district office ask questions on the new programs. Express your displeasure with the changes. There is not much they can do to change a ministerial decision but your displeasure will be sent up the line.
Try and get in for a face to face meeting with your MLA Mondays are constituency days. MLAS are in their local offices every Monday.
Educate yourself know the facts. Do not just take my word and do not just take what the minister says for fact. Read the Croll Lee report www.gnb.ca/0000/publications/comm/FSL%20Report.pdf Read the analysis of and rebuttal of the Croll Lee report published by the CPF http://www.cpfnb.com/reports/BeyondHysteria.pdf
There are many other issues and publications in regard to these changes which would be far too many for me to list here. If you want more info there are a couple of good websites set up with plenty of links to reports etc… the local Saint John site is www.educationnb.org
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