What’s been on my Mind!
Once again, life has gotten in the way of me updating my blog. Here’s a few paragraphs (well maybe more than a few) to keep everyone up to date of what’s been going on since we got back from our trip. (I know I still haven’t added Part 2 of our trip yet!)
So as some of you are aware, we were having some issues with Mackenzie and school. She was having a hard time, and this was one of the reasons we decided to take the trip. When we got home, these issues did not get any better, if anything things were escalating and hit the boiling point of her getting suspended from school. I’m not going to get into the details of the suspension, but when I actually got the call from the Principal last week a sense of relief came over me. We met with the school district later in the week and I’m happy that our concerns were listened to and they will hopefully be resolved so no other child will have to suffer like she did this year. I just wish I had listened to my own instincts and took her out of school after we returned from Florida, but as they say..”hind sight is 20-20″.
The second issue that’s been looming over our family has been EarlyFrench Immersion, you may have read a previous post called A Sad Day in NB for Education. If not, to sum it up- Early French Immersion was eliminated as an option in NB. IN our province it starts at the grade 1 level, and Liam was registered to start this coming fall. On Feb 29, a report was released regarding French Second Language (FSL) (the Friday before March Break) and parents were told to send comments and concerns regarding the report to the GNB website. There was no mention of when the Minister would make his final decision. Two weeks later on March 14th, Education Minister Kelly Lamrock made the announcement that Early French Immersion would no longer be an option for FSL. Instead all French instruction would be eliminated from Grades 1-4 and in Grade 5, ALL children would then take an Intensive French course, where half the year would be taught in French, and the entire Grade 5 curriculum would be crammed into the other half the year.
After the decision was made, many FSL experts came out against this decision even the designers of the Intensive French Course said it was never meant to be used this way, it was never meant to replace Early French Immersion. You can hear a CBC Radio Documentary on this here: http://www.cbc.ca/nb/features/ scroll down to Sunday Edition: Scrapping the Cadillac. I soon joined a group of concerned parents upset that the choice was no longer an option for our children, and we decided to sue the Province, and we felt that the whole process leading up to this decision was flawed. A 2 week period one of which being the March Break, was unacceptable, after the Minister stated this past summer, that there would be “a full debate on this issue”. Is 2 weeks and an online submission form, really a full debate?
On June 11th, Justice Hugh McLellan of the Court of Queen’s Bench, deemed that “the decision of the
Minister was unfair and unreasonable” and that “the Minister’s decision to phase-out Early French Immersion is removed into the Court and quashed.” This meant that Early French Immersion was back on! I took the four kids with me to the Court room to hear the verdict, and managed to get myself on TV again, I guess I was a good photo-op. 
Later that day, our hopes that this would be over and our children who were enrolled in EFI for the fall of 2008 would be allowed to resume, were dashed when Minister Lamrock stated, that he would now follow the Judges ruling and allow for a full debate and have a 6 week consultation. Comments and ideas could be submitted once again to the GNB website up to July 25, and the Minister would make his final decision on August 5th, 4 weeks before the start of the school year.
Could this cause anymore turmoil for families, teachers and school administrators, who now have to come up with staffing plans for 3 possible scenarios? Once again the Minister of Education is showing his “unfairness and unreasonableness”, it’s time to admit you’ve made a mistake rushing this through and put a one year hold on this plan. Furthermore I believe that Minister Lamrock as a parent of a child enrolled in Kindergarten this year (and an older one in EFI) needs to take a step back from this decision, it is clear that this has gotten too personal for him. Designate an independent panel that can weigh the pros and cons of this. Not have someone that has a predetermined outcome already conceived.
Many parents have been deceived into believing that EFI is the root of all of the problems in NB ) Education System, and if you’ve only heard Lamrock’s side of things or read their Glossy inserts in our newspapers http://www.gnb.ca/0000/publications/ProgressReportEnglish.pdf he makes a great argument, but there is another side to this, last month this article was published in the Telegraph Journal with outlines a lot of the misconceptions and myths the Government had been feeding the public, The Other Side on Education.
So if I’ve been a little preoccupied it’s because I have a lot on my mind. I want all of my children to have the opportunity to become fluently bilingual, and under this new plan, that is questionable, unless they opt for the Late French Immersion program in 6th grade. We won’t know how successful that will be either, as anyone currently who is in LFI, has had previous French instruction prior to entry and there are plans to offer less courses in French in the future. It’s a big gamble that the Government is taking on, I don’t want my children to become lab rats in the “educational experiment” that has not been proven.
I hope my children will get the opportunity to wear this symbol in the future. If the government’s plan goes through, it will truly be a rarity to see it in the future.
June 16th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
i can’t believe that no one has called for lamrocks resignation.
June 16th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Lots have called for it. Noone listens.