École Pine Grove School French Immersion Survey Results & Analysis

To:  Superintendent Gary Sadler, Carla Kisko, John Conlin and Elaine Westerhof

From:  The École Pine Grove School Community represented by Bill McKeon

Date:  Tuesday, September 16, 2003

Re:  École Pine Grove and our Survey

Superintendent Sadler and members of the committee, thank you for this second opportunity to speak with you regarding École Pine Grove School and French Immersion.

Pine Grove is an outstanding school. Students excel in its single track French Immersion program. The Fraser Institute recently ranked Pine Grove as the top public school in the Halton Region. The school exemplifies educational excellence and is a model that should be supported and shared, not shut down.

After the announcement of the PE13 School Closure/Consolidation Study in June 2003, a committee of Pine Grove parents developed a survey, which was sent home the last week of school, seeking input on the French Immersion program and its delivery. This presentation highlights the survey results and makes observations and recommendations based on their analysis.

Attached are a copy of the survey and a complete summary of parents’ responses including their comments. These comments represent hundreds of opinions and a well worth reviewing.

The survey represents the responses of 193 families with 310 children in French immersion, 257 of whom are at Pine Grove, representing 40% of our student population. This response rate is excellent given the time limitations of the process. The information is summarized for West Oakville (Pine Grove’s catchment area) and by geographically distinct communities: West Oak Trails, Westmount, Glen Abbey East, Glen Abbey West, Southwest Oakville East (Ward 2), Southwest Oakville West (Ward 1). These communities were identified so that any significant variance in opinion relating to the age of a community (new growth through mature) might be recognized.

A resounding 89% of respondents clearly chose a single track French Immersion centre as their preferred method of delivery for French Immersion.

Parents support for the program declines sharply as its perceived quality is seen to deteriorate.

Parents’ commitment to French Immersion is still very strong, as 73% of the parents responded that their children would continue in a dual track program. However, many qualified their “yes” by adding that it would depend on the quality of the program.

Support dropped to 44% if their children were moved to and existing school where French immersion students were a small minority of the school population (à la Eastview grade 7&8). Support for this alternative increases significantly to 69% in a new school setting where French Immersion students and English program students entered the school on an even footing (examples are Charles R. Beaudoin or the new Brock/Elgin High School).

Support bottomed out at 30% if parents thought their child might be in two grade splits for a number of years running. It is worth noting that multi grade splits are a viewed as a problem, whether the kids affected are in Immersion or in an English program (as at Sunningdale until 2001).

Parents are strongly opposed to the program becoming itinerate and being relocated and reorganized repeatedly. 51% of the parents would tolerate one relocation of the program for their child before withdrawing from French Immersion. Only 12 % would tolerate two moves. Currently children in the French Immersion program in West Oakville attend three schools from kindergarten to grade 8, while many of their peers remain in one school for those same 10 years. Moving the program repeatedly will mean many French Immersion children will attend 4 or 5 different schools in their elementary years.

Asked whether they would prefer to bus their children to a single track French Immersion program on the other side of the Queen Elizabeth Way or have them walk to dual track Immersion centre in their neighbourhood, two thirds of the parents indicated that they would bus their children. Of interest, this percentage is higher in the North, where 75% of the parents who already bus their children across the QEW said would continue to do so.

Asked about their preference for grade configurations of their children’s schools, 53% preferred a two school, grades 1-8, 9-graduation model, and 19% preferred a three school, grades 1-6, 7-8, 9-graduation model.

It is clear that Pine Grove parents are committed to single track French Immersion. Concern grows as the quality of programming and support diminishes. Whether offered in a single track or dual track setting, the quality of the program and the effects of school changes on their children are uppermost in parents’ minds.

According to our findings, when the French Immersion program is offered in a dual track centre and the English program children are in the majority, parents have reservations. In a single track centre, French is heard in the hallways and the classrooms. There is a loss of this French culture as French moves behind closed doors and selected hallways in a dual track school. Resources are spread more thinly. There are fewer teacher choices. Instead of having two or three teaching teams for each grade level there may only be one. When the prospect of split grades becomes a reality, teacher choices become more limited.

In the comments included with the survey summary, parents have suggested some alternatives to the École Pine Grove School closure and the inevitable disruption to their children’s education:

• Move all French Immersion students to one school that is allowed to stay open.
   
• Keep French Immersion at Pine Grove until the students can be moved to one school [that will stay open].
   
• Use the additional French Immersion funding the Board receives to help keep French Immersion schools open, rather than using it elsewhere in the system.

Some of the scenarios that support maintaining a single track grade 1-8 French Immersion centre for West Oakville include:

1. Use Pine Grove as a holding school for West Oakville’s grade 1-8 French Immersion students. Consolidate French Immersion in West Oakville at Pine Grove and close the school when space becomes available in Glen Abbey. The Capital Strategic Plan indicates that later this decade, the student population in Glen Abbey will have declined to the point where one of the three schools in the community will be considered for closure. Rather than close any of those schools, move the French Immersion community north and close Pine Grove to fund growth north of Dundas Street or west of Third Line. This preserves the school’s program, culture and community, even through the move. The QE Park secondary school closure and integration is an excellent example of how this can be down. Next summer, QE Park will move north to its new home in Glen Abbey, without disruption.
    
2. The “mega-school” option. Halton has a number of school campuses, where disparate communities are combined in one or more buildings on one site. Burlington Central, West Oak Secondary and EC Drury are examples of programs on one campus in separate buildings. The integrated General Brock/Lord Elgin will be an example of two programs housed in one building.
   
   Building technology today allows structures to be flexible. A permanent “hub” with gyms, library, resource centre and offices could grow to 1600 pupil spaces or shrink to 800 as a community ebbs and flows. Six, eight and ten room portapaks are now available with bright, wide hallways and classrooms that are indistinguishable from their counterparts in bricks and mortar buildings.
   
   The Southwest Oakville Parents group suggested closing our school, Gladys Speers and Eastview in order to fund not only this innovative concept to be built on the QE Park lands, but to satisfy the board’s need for funding new school construction in growth communities. Perhaps such an option should be considered for the next school in Northwest Oakville.
    
3. If closing Pine Grove will put 525 kids into 21 portables, why not keep them together at one location? Attach two or three portapaks to an existing school on a large site in Northwest or Southwest Oakville. This would avoid the program’s adoption of a nomadic character as currently planned in the Northwest, and it would ensure the ongoing integrity of the French Immersion program.

Pine Grove is an exceptional school and its students truly do excel in its bilingual single track French Immersion program. Pine Grove is the number one ranked public elementary school in Halton.

According to the Board website:

The Halton District School Board is committed to providing the highest quality education, which prepares our students for success as responsible, participating citizens of the global community.

Surely the success of École Pine Grove Public School in providing its students with the highest quality education is a superb example of the Board’s commitment. Pine Grove is a model of educational excellence in Halton that should be supported and shared, not shut down. In today’s competitive and multilingual world our children need as many skills and advantages as possible. Most progressive western countries have at least a bilingual education system and many have multilingual schooling. Why do we in Canada, a bilingual country, not offer bilingual education to everyone? French Immersion is offered to all students in Halton, but why are they not encouraged, when learning in more than one language would serve them so well as citizens of the global community.

Merci and thank you for your time.

1. Pine Grove French Immersion Survey
2. École Pine Grove PS 2003 French Immersion Survey- Summary of Responses

Our delegation would be happy to meet with you during your detailed review our survey results, to discuss and further explain our findings.