A few new french immersion courses will be coming to Sturgeon Composite High School.
Sturgeon Public Schools (SPS) made the announcement last week. It will become the first high school in the division to offer french courses.
"Up to now we have had two of our schools with the french immersion option," said Lauren Walter, the marketing and communications manager with the division.
"For quite some time we have had french immersion programming at Ecole Morinville Public available for our K-to-4 students and we also have french immersion available to our junior high students at Four Winds Public School, so that's grades five to nine."
The programming will hit Sturgeon Composite in time for the next school year. At the moment there will be just two french courses available: french language arts and french social studies.
The introduction of the courses was largely inspired by the idea of giving students who have grown up in french immersion the opportunity to continue with it through high school.
"Our students build this skillset that carries into their lives in so many ways whether it's academically or beyond school, and we want students to be able to continue that into high school and not abandon all the work they have done," said Walter.
Walters added that the ability for students to continue their french learning could help students land jobs outside of school that require bilingual applicants.
It was also a move that helps keeps students in the division.
"We don't want our students to be faced with the decision of potentially going to another division if they want to continue french immersion," said Walter.
"This is a way for us to build on those skills they already developed in K-to-9 and allow them to become even more fluent in the French language at the high school level."
SPS is hoping that this is just the beginning and that more french immersion courses will be added in the next few years.
"Our goal within the next couple of years is to have math and science courses also be available to students," said Walter. "It's all dependent on enrollment."
The earliest this expansion of courses could happen would be the 2024-2025 school year, but it is dependent on the number of students that enrol in the program.
Parents who want to enrol their kids in french immersion at the school will need to contact the school either through email or phone.
