STOP the proposed changes to Kindergarten & EFI at OCDSB

Thank you for your support. The proposal has now been delayed by the Trustees! Please continue to sign the petition though, this is not over, we will continue to fight to keep a FULL French Immersion Program. Please visit our Facebook page for updates https://www.facebook.com/OPEFI/

Thank you for your support. The proposal has now been delayed by the Trustees! Please continue to sign the petition though, this is not over, we will continue to fight to keep a FULL French Immersion Program. Please visit our Facebook page for updates https://www.facebook.com/OPEFI/

In Ottawa we are fortunate to have many wonderful French teachers! Let's not dilute the program and settle for mediocrity, let's aim high and give our kids and the community top quality French-immersion education!

I can't understand why this being considered in this day and age, where children need at least 2 languages.

Please keep the FULL French Immersion Program!!

I support full French immersion.

This change would take away my right to choose.

Parents need a choice for their children. While dual language and immersion programs are extremely valuable, there are lots of situations where a dual language program is not the best choice for a child. The voice of ESL families has not been heard enough during this "debate"

I think that this decision needs to be postponed until such time as the parents have been provided the research that shows that providing French in English is going to enhance the understanding of Mathematics, which is why we have been told this proposal has been put into place. We have already initiated Maths in English from grade 4 in the hopes of correcting this - apparently this has not yielded positive results. Have we explored what has enhanced the understanding of Maths in areas where they are excelling? What have we observed of the results of our French teachers training in Maths over the last 2 years? Have we allowed enough time to yield results? I have attended a meeting in which I asked many questions in order to understand this situation and the one answer I never received for any question was that "this is in the best interest of learning of my child" - I have heard things like "this is to be an inclusive class, it is to provide more jobs for teachers, there is funding that will be returned to schools or school boards if this is adopted, and it was supposed that as there is a deficit that needs to be addressed ." etc. I will be happy to support a decision for which we have clear understanding behind the reasoning or to show the studies that show me this is why this is the best decision. Also, if the reasoning is based solely for budgetary reasons, it would be interesting / helpful to see all options and engaging us the parents in consultation and see if we can't find the best solution together.

I have not seen any evidence that would support reducing the amount of french provided in the current EFI program will improve student's performance. I would like to see clear evidence that this change would be beneficial before any changes are made.

French is a part of Canada and we must be bilingual. Give our children the chance to speak both official languages. We'll hurt them in the end if we do not.

must remain the same...

I strongly believe that more evidence is required before changes are made to justify reducing the amount of French instruction. Also, an evaluation plan should be an integral part of any changes in curriculum to generate the evidence that the intended results have been achieved. We switched our child from the Catholic scho board because of the higher number of hours of french instruction offered by the public boar and have already witnessed a dramatic increase in our child's knowledge and use of the french language. I fear a reduction will result in poor French attainment and will lower the chance of our children becoming fully bilingual and comfortable in French.

In my opinion all day 4 yr old kp is an " overload " for a child of that age,in their first language and as such the retention of a second language being increased,is a waste of tax dollars.Definitley the grades one to three would benefit by getting the increase in French rather than a decrease.

I am concerned about the introduction of too many adults in the JK year - my son had 2 teachers and 2 ECEs in SK. It was difficult to bond with all of them, and as a parent we received contradictory information from each "set". I also feel that full French in grade 1 is valuable and should not be diluted. These proposed changes are contrary to the Board's past propaganda about the EFI program.

Although I do like the proposed Jk/SK introduction to french. I am strongly a posed to the current model that is being circulated. I feel that this is both being rushed and only taking finances into consideration. Please don't break a program that's working well so that you can solve the english stream challenge you currently have.

I went to a French school and I'm glad I did.

Keep it an immersion program! partial immersion does not make for fully bilingual students.

Je suis totatellement en désaccord! This is outrageous. Vote "NO"

Where's the data? Why wasn't it shared? What about the ESL parents? Have they been consulted?