French Immersion growth prompts board to look at accommodation options

MEDIA RELEASE
January 15, 2015

GUELPH, Ontario – Rapidly increasing enrolment at École Edward Johnson Public School in Guelph has prompted the Upper Grand District School Board to consider a number of options for relieving enrolment pressure, including temporary use of the former Tytler Public School.

Edward Johnson is a JK to Grade 6 French Immersion (FI) Centre. It was subject to a boundary review in 2011-2012, but incoming cohorts of about 100 kindergarten students a year is overwhelming the capacity of the school, which already has six portables and a four-room portapack.

At the Business Operations Committee on January 13 trustees received a report from Board staff outlining five possible options for interim accommodation, until a new school can be constructed on Couling Crescent in East Guelph. “Option 2”, the introduction of a cap on new FI enrolment that would impact all schools in Guelph, was removed from consideration following a successful motion by Trustee Susan Moziar.

A decision on the remaining four options will be made a special board meeting on February 10, 2015. In each case, the interim accommodation would be for the 2015-16 school year, and the 2016-17 school year if the new Couling Crescent school is not open.

• Option 1 – accommodate all Grade 3-6 Edward Johnson students at a satellite campus in the former Tytler PS.
• Option 3 – accommodate Grade 3-4 students at the Tytler satellite campus, and move Grade 5-6 students to École King George PS.
• Option 4 – add more portables to Edward Johnson, and accommodate Grade 5-6 students at King George. In 2016-17 Grades 4 to 6 would attend King George.
• Option 5 – create an interim boundary for the new Couling Cresent school from the Edward Johnson attendance area only, and temporarily accommodate students in the Tytler building. In 2015-16 the school would be JK-3, and grow to JK-4 in 2016-17. A full boundary review, including the King George school community, would be completed in spring 2015.

The staff report outlines the advantages and disadvantages of each of the options. It can be viewed online at www.ugdsb.ca/ejplan.

 Trustees also received a second report from staff which recommended the creation of a committee to develop an FI Management Strategy. Although overall enrolment in the board has been gradually declining, the elementary FI program has been growing steadily at an average rate of 7% per year, placing increasing pressure on elementary schools throughout the jurisdiction to accommodate FI students.

 Staff recommended that the new committee should complete its work by December 2015, but trustees instead voted to appoint five of their members to a committee that would be solely tasked with first establishing the terms of reference for a review of the FI program. It is expected that the terms of reference will come back to the board for approval in March 2015.

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For more information:

Maggie McFadzen, Communications Officer
519-822-4420 ext.725
maggie.mcfadzen@ugdsb.on.ca
 

Mark Weidmark, Administrative Officer – Communications
519-822-4420 ext.544
mark.weidmark@ugdsb.on.ca

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