The French immersion program at Henry Hudson Elementary School is being phased out.
“We’re incredibly disappointed,” Jody Bielun told CTV News after the vote. “Our whole community is being split up.”
The Vancouver School Board voted seven to two in favour of scrapping the school’s early French immersion program Monday night.
Jessica Holmes, who has two kids in the program and one who has graduated said, “They’re going to be closing a program that’s actually really awesome.”
The board voted that “the District cease enrolling French immersion kindergarten classes at Henry Hudson Elementary School in September 2020 and begin phasing out the French immersion program over the next eight years.”
According to the staff report, the school is operating over capacity and there isn’t enough classroom space to accommodate both the English and French programs.
When presenting the motion, Trustee Allan Wong acknowledged coming to this decision has been “challenging.”
He went on to say he wishes there was space for both programs but, “unfortunately how the projections are working out, that school will not be of size.”
Bielun told CTV News that getting rid of the French program “is not going to solve their problems.”
Estrellita Gonzalez, one of the trustees who voted in favour, said, “at the end of the day, French immersion a choice program.” But she acknowledged that future development in the area could pose problems down the road.
The decision includes a review process should enrolment numbers be low and stated the board would commit to “providing sibling priority registration, along with siblings of in-catchment English program students, to siblings of French immersion students currently enrolled in the Henry Hudson French immersion program.”
Trustee Fraser Ballantyne called this decision a “compromise.”
Both trustees Jennifer Reddy and Barb Parrott voted against it. When Parrott explained why she was planning to vote against the motion, she said it was because originally the board considered three options but ended up choosing one entirely different.
Of the options originally proposed, one was status quo - to make no changes. The second was a phased relocation, in which students could remain at the school and finish their program, or pursue other re-enrolment choices, and the program would be fully phased out by June 2027. The third was to relocate the program, and move students, to Lord Strathcona Elementary School in September 2020.
“To come back to this board with a recommendation that is different from those three options isn’t a fair process,” Parrott said.
September’s kindergarten French immersion class will be the last year to enrol.
