Stuck between a province that approves money and a city that decides upon land, Vancouver school trustees found themselves embattled in a debate that pit neighbourhoods, schools and educational choices against one another.
And the outcome left a large contingent unhappy.
Trustees voted 7-2 Monday evening to phase out a French immersion program at Henry Hudson elementary in Kitsilano over the next eight years. Beginning next year, the school will no longer accept French immersion students in kindergarten.
With a capacity of just 340 kids, the school, which offers both an English and French stream, is over capacity. Many Hudson students come from other parts of the city specifically for French education, which is squeezing out neighbourhood students.
“The enrolment pressures around Hudson are just so tight that it wasn’t possible to be able to find a proposal that would keep the French immersion students at Hudson and all the while in-catchment English students to enrol,” board chair Janet Fraser lamented Tuesday.
Hudson’s enrolment numbers have skewed towards those learning in English every year from 2009 to 2018. This year’s differential sees 264 kids enrolled in the English program, versus 149 learning in French.
VSB statistics point to 42 per cent of the school’s population living in Kitsilano, while another 53 per cent come from the downtown peninsula or Yaletown.
For the current school year, 11 kindergarten students in the Hudson catchment area are being forced to go to Queen Mary elementary school due to the lack of space at their own neighbourhood school.
“It’s difficult — we heard from a lot of the French immersion parents about the challenges it will bring to their families’ lives,” Fraser said. “But we also have to think about the voices we’re not hearing from, and that’s form the 11 students who’ve been placed at a school five kilometres away from Hudson and that’s their in-catchment school.”
The board had contemplated consolidating the Hudson and Strathcona French immersion programs at Strathcona elementary, but faced considerable pushback from both school communities, including a petition from Parent Advisory Councils representing both schools opposed to the merger. For their part, Hudson parents overwhelmingly opposed any changes at the school whatsoever.
“Parents are very confused by the sudden change from a plan to move to Lord Strathcona elementary to a complete phase-out of the early immersion program at Hudson with no offsetting seats at another location,” Hudson PAC chair Rob Ford said in an email to the Courier. “There has been very little consultation with Henry Hudson parents about this last-minute twist to the proposal.”
Kitsilano resident Monika Marcovici has two kids in Grade 2 who will have aged out of Hudson before French is phased out.
In an email to the Courier Tuesday morning, Marcovici said Hudson parents feel their voices were ignored by board trustees and staff.
“In all of these consultations, and the handful of polls, the results were unmistakably clear: the vast majority of those polled (96 per cent) were not in favour of any change to the French Immersion program, whether cancelling, phasing out, moving, or any such combination,” Marcovici said.
Trustees passed amendments and other motions Monday aimed at mitigating the impacts of the overall decision, which was opposed by OneCity trustee Jennifer Reddy and COPE’s Barb Parrott.
In the event an enrolling class is projected to have under 15 intermediate students or 12 primary students, a review option for them will take place. According to Vision trustee Allan Wong — the VSB’s longest-serving trustee — that review could move those kids into a split class or having teachers split their days between French and English instruction.
“There’s a commitment by the board to have that discussion if it gets there. No one wants it to get to that stage,” Wong said.
Trustees also included a clause in the district’s five-year capital plan that specifically calls on the province to expand the school’s footprint to help address capacity issues.
Fraser said teachers impacted by the decision would not face job losses, as the collective agreement between Vancouver teachers and the board allow for those positions to move to other schools.
“The option that trustees would love to have in our control is to build a bigger school that could accommodate the in catchment and the French immersion students,” Fraser said.
@JohnKurucz
