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Education Minister Kelly Lamrock wishes to thank all those who took time to submit comments.

Please note that we will only post submissions from people who have given us explicit consent to do so. We will not post the following:

Submissions received on-line that indicate "Not public" on the web form
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Please also note that because each submission must be reviewed in the context of the above, there will normally be a time lag of between 2-3 days between receiving a submission and posting it on the website.

As of 4:30 p.m. Friday, July 25, 2008, the French Second Language consultation has concluded. Any comments received after that time will not be posted, but will be brought to the Minister's attention.

Improving French Second Language Programming Within a Quality Education System(pdf)

Comments appear in the language received.

BUILT IT AND THEY WILL COME

This is intended for the Public of New Brunswick and for Mr. Lamrock's consideration.

I am a teacher in New Brunswick. Up until recently, teachers have been told to not comment on the latest proposed changes to the FSL programs offered in our province. This has not been an easy task but being a professional, I did what was asked of me. Being silent since March has given me quite a bit of time to truly reflect and to dig down to the roots of the problems that we face in our current education system.

I have to begin by sincerely thanking Mr. Lamrock for opening the public's eyes to the many issues present in our current New Brunswick schools. He is correct in saying not enough students are graduating speaking French. He has reason to state our literacy and math scores need to be improved and he is right in saying we have a streaming problem. He also says we need a system that is available to ALL our children, not just a selected few. I agree 100%. I even agree with some of our Minister's proposals.

However, I do not completely agree with all of the solutions Mr. Lamrock has proposed in dealing with the above challenges. Below are my thoughts along with proposed recommendations coming from someone on the front line. For the citizens who are not in our schools on a regular basis, they can only assume what is true from what they read in the newspaper or perhaps from a report. My goal is not only to offer alternate recommendations but to give our public the reasons behind them. In addition, I have included examples that will help New Brunswickers realize why our education system is where it is and what needs to be done to improve its state.

Mr. Lamrock says not enough students are graduating speaking French. This is true. And as I continued to ask "why" over the last few months, I found that the other pressing issues (such as assessment scores and streaming) were all intertwined.

Why is this so?

There are 2 main reasons why not enough students are graduating speaking French.

1. Over the years, the majority of parents/students in our province have chosen the French Core program over the Early French program which has failed them miserably in the area of French acquisition.

2. The second reason forces us to look at the Early French Immersion system. Let us assume, just for fun, that all Early French Immersion students graduate speaking French (which I believe to be true). Since the minority of our New Brunswick students is enrolled in this program and some do not completely finish the program, the overall average of French speaking graduates is going to be low by default. That leads us to the next question.

Why are so many parents/students choosing the French Core program over the Early French Immersion program?

This is the most important question of all. With the Early French Immersion program being considered the "Cadillac" for French acquisition, it would only make sense that if most of our students were enrolled in this program, we would have a very high percentage of French speaking graduates. Why are parents not lined up at the door trying to get their kids in? Here are 2 reasons (and some examples) to explain this:

1. Did you know that not all schools in our province offer Early French Immersion? Many people do not realize this. For a program that is supposed to be offered to ALL of our students, it makes it pretty difficult to enroll when the program is not offered at the local community school. The government will argue that because of lack of interest (and to save money), Early French Immersion is only offered in some schools and that if the child wishes to enroll in Early French Immersion, transportation will be offered to the closest available school. That sounds great on paper. The reality is that we have MANY rural and remote areas in our province and the "next" school is sometimes further than a 75 minute school bus ride away! Many parents can not possibly imagine choosing to send their 5 or 6 year old child that far to go to school, especially when there is a school available just up the road. The "lack of interest" is due to the "lack of proximity" created by the government. Because of this reason, most of these parents choose the local French Core program which is available at the closer school which we already know will not have them graduate fluent in French.

2. Did you know that our schools are equipped not only with regular classroom teachers? Of course you did. We have a huge support staff. On the academic side, we have Resource and Methods Teachers, Literacy Support Teachers and Teacher Assistants, just to name a few.

Resource and Methods Teachers generally have a Master's Degree in a specified Education domain. They help the classroom teacher establish and carry out Special Education Plans for our exceptional students. They also pull out small groups of students from their regular classes in order to offer extra help in the areas of literacy and math. They are very important teachers in our schools but yet they are often not available to ALL of our struggling students. In a certain K-8 school in New Brunswick, the student population is projected to be over 500 students in September 2008. That school will be assigned 2 fulltime and 1 part time Resource Teachers. With over half of its students enrolled in the Early French Immersion program, not one Early French Immersion student will work directly with one of those 3 Resource Teachers. Simply put, the job requirements for these positions do not require the teacher to be French speaking. Where is the logic here? Why are not ALL our students allowed to get extra help?

Teacher Assistants are generally assigned to a teacher who has a diagnosed exceptional student in his/her classroom. If a parent of an exceptional child chooses to enroll their child in the Early French Immersion program, a Teacher's Assistant will be assigned to that class. However, a French speaking Teacher Assistant is not deemed compulsory. How can this be? How does this make sense? Would we put a Spanish speaking Teacher Assistant in an English classroom? Of course not. Many of these exceptional students need the Teacher Assistant to be the teacher's echo. The TA is often required to redirect, repeat, and/or re-teach concepts. If he/she is not capable of doing so in the language of instruction, what is the point?

Literacy Support Teachers have also proved to be a vital part in our school system. Like Resource Teachers, they also take small groups of students out of their regular classes and provide more support in the area of literacy. In another school in New Brunswick, there was one English Literacy Support Teacher available for students for 24 weeks of the school year and one French Literacy Support Teacher available to students for 6 weeks only. Oh, I forgot to mention that over half of this school's population was also enrolled in EFI. Are we saying that certain students are more important than others?

Consider the following. Imagine your Kindergarten-age child is exceptional and has benefited from the help of a Teacher Assistant all year. Or, perhaps your 5 year old has been showing academic delays but is showing progress during his/her first year in school due to the help of the Resource and/or Literacy Support teacher. Then, you find out when your child enters grade 1, one program will continue to offer this support while the other will not. What would you do? Is this fair for our New Brunswick kids?

Why do not all students complete the French Immersion Program?

1. The most common reason is the lack of human resources available to the struggling students in EFI (explained above). Regardless of the lack of human resources available in the Early French Immersion program, some parents still choose to enroll their exceptional or struggling child in the EFI program with hopes that their child can come out of the program speaking, reading and writing French. What happens far too often is that their child falls behind curriculum expectations because there is nobody (not even the parent in some cases) available to offer extra help besides the classroom teacher. Frustrated, parents choose to have their child switch programs in hopes that the support system available in the other program can help rescue their child.

2. The second reason is that the current French Immersion programs (late and early) do not require high school students to take enough courses in French in order to graduate. Thus, students opt to take other electives or university-prep courses offered only in English. I argue that this should not be called "dropping out" of the program in the first place.

RECOMMENDATIONS - "BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME"

1. Offer the Early French Immersion program in more schools so that no child has to travel an unreasonable amount of time in order to get to school. This will result in more students enrolling in EFI and increasing our amount of French speaking graduates.

2. Require that French speaking Resource and Methods teachers, French speaking Teachers Assistants and more Literacy Support Teachers be available to help all Early French Immersion students in need. This will result in more parents choosing to enroll their child in EFI because they will know the program is loaded with extra support. This will also see our test scores improve because extra help will be available to ALL students. Lastly, this will help to reduce streaming considerably.

3. Replace the current French Core program with the suggested Intensive French Program. If the first two recommendations are implemented, the students who choose to remain in the English program would begin the Intensive French program in grade five. This will again, see us increase the number of graduates speaking French.

4. Make more French classes mandatory in order to graduate. When students continue to apply what has been learned, their French acquisition will continue to improve.