As New Brunswick youth prepare to head back to school, the Anglophone East School District is scrambling to find substitute staff to teach its French immersion program.
The school district says it’s exhausted its pool of immersion teachers as it tries to accommodate the new Grade 1 program announced last year.
District superintendent Gregg Ingersoll said the new curriculum is ready for the 612 students currently enrolled in the program. He said filling the 38 new Grade 1 immersion teaching positions has been a challenge because there are not enough immersion certified teachers in the province, but the positions have been filled.
READ MORE: New Brunswick French immersion returning to Grade 1
“We did hire a few people from outside the province,” he said. “Most of them are New Brunswickers that moved away and saw the posting and moved back.”
The issue is finding enough French immersion supply teachers for the entire district.
So far, 24 new immersion teachers have been hired — 10 of which will teach Grade One — but Ingersoll said they have no backups.
He said they need at minimum 15 long-term supply teachers certified to teach French immersion, but are still trying to recruit, and will need teachers who can do both day-to-day supply teaching but also long-term positions for things like maternity leave.
“Our biggest challenge this year will be finding replacement teachers because just about anybody that would have been one of our replacement teachers before, we have hired them to work in the program,” Ingersoll said.
Last September, the provincial government announced students starting school would be able to do so in either official language as French immersion returned to Grade 1.
READ MORE: New Brunswick premier calls for ‘tolerance’ amid bilingualism tensions
Grade 3 has been the starting point for French immersion since 2008, first put in place by the Liberal government of the day, and last year the current Liberals reverted things back to the way they were.
The announcement of the Grade 1 program was welcome news for parent Angie Carter, whose six-year-old daughter, Ryleigh, will be entering the Grade 1 program in just a few weeks.
But news there’s a lack of French supply teachers has left her concerned.
“I am hoping that there are enough teachers,” she said.
“A lot of parents were on the fence about it (the Grade 1 program), but we are not, our decision was clear. I only see it as a huge advantage.”
With no backups in place, should her daughter’s teacher get sick or go on leave, Carter said she’s wondering if the push to move French immersion to Grade 1 was too rushed.
In response to the difficulty being faced in finding substitute staff, she’s calling on the district and province to offer big incentives in an effort to bring in more teachers. She said this could including signing bonuses and guaranteed hours.
READ MORE: N.B. government launches review of best time to begin French immersion
“Bring as many people as we can to New Brunswick,” Carter said.
Ingersoll, however, said that will still be an uphill climb.
“Teachers usually don’t move once the school year starts because once you have that commitment, you tend to want to keep that commitment,” he said.
In an email from the government, spokesperson Kelly Cormier said that as of June the number of students enrolled in the Grade 1 program was approximately 1,800 with final numbers expected in October.
She said last year, there were 2,227 students enrolled in the French immersion’s original early entry point of Grade 3 and added there were 363 fewer Grade 1 students this year compared to those in Grade 3 last year.
“Therefore, there are fewer children enrolling in Grade 1 to begin with,” she wrote.
Approximately $3.5 million has been budgeted by the education department to cover additional costs related to reintroduction of the Grade 1 French program.
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