It was 2014, when the last French Immersion Program (FIP) review in Western School Division (WSD) was conducted. This year, an external and internal review has been completed with twenty recommendations made for the division by Seine River Assistant Superintendent and conductor of the review Simone Laplante.
WSD Superintendent Stephen Ross described the process.
"We really appreciated the effort that he put in he did a review of all of our current policies, our visions, the supports that are in place for French Immersion teachers and students. He visited all the schools; he reviewed all the literature that we have posted inside and outside the schools and on web pages. He did one-on-one interviews with staff, with teachers, with school administrators, and more importantly with kids.”
Here is an excerpt from the review:
“Western School division should be proud of their French immersion program. We found that students had a very satisfactory level of French. The teachers were focusing on providing the French environment in their classrooms. The classrooms were inviting, visually stimulating, and the students were happy and enthusiastic about their French experience.”
Ross expressed the value in conducting this review.
“It's important to have people come in from outside and tell you how you're doing. Sometimes when people just look inside, they don't see all the warts and we need to be the kinds of organizations that look at our warts as well so that we can be better. The public expects that of us and that's what we need to do so kids are in a good spot.”
Ross shared his reaction to the recommendations made.
"I think we're really happy with the results when he came out. He had lots of good things to say about what's happening in Western School Division. As somebody who's very passionate about education as Simone is, he also had many recommendations for us. Those we are going to have to work on overtime because there's quite a few things that he suggested we could do to improve and get even better.”
The FIP has approximately 400 students from k-12 in WSD. Ross said the program is certainly growing with the biggest cohort of students in the high school. Students can currently graduate with a FI Diploma. With years of challenges finding FI teachers to sustain the program the division is encouraged to have a former student returning to the division who is doing their teaching practicum at the division with the hopes of teaching in the division next year.
Ross stated this review will give the division a framework for the future.
"He came up with 20 recommendations for us. When you work in organizations, you know 3 to 5 is kind of a good number to work with. Twenty is a lot so we looked at in the short-term putting all of those recommendations into a bit of a plan where some we can address in the short term in the next year or two, what's midterm maybe 3 years out, and what's maybe long term 3 or 5 years because of budget implications or other things.”
Ross said reinstating a committee with a variety of voices will be the first thing on the to do list, along with a Student Voice committee to hear directly from kids in the program. Ross added Laplante was pleased with the input he received from students during the review and looks forward to hearing from students on what is working, what isn’t, and their ideas moving forward.
Another recommendation that Ross has seen vary over the years is the composition of schools. Sometimes the advice given is to put all French Immersion students in one school and other times, mixing students together in dual track schools is recommended. Ross said the dual track composition WSD has been doing over the years, was recommended to maintain a mixed allocation as it has more benefits to WSD’s particular environment.
The division is ready to roll up their sleeves to get to work on the recommendations.
"Well, the review is obviously the easy part, the hard part is now making it work. It does take a lot of work to make a French Immersion program successful in a community that doesn't have any francophone components in it. This is going to give us lots of work moving ahead, but it's important. It's certainly a program that a lot of our people in our community choose to put their kids into for a variety of reasons, and it's continuing to grow. And so that's something we have to invest our planning time and effort into to make these things happen.”
Find the full review on the WSD website.