Photo: Shaun Penner / EverythingGP staff

By Shane Clausing

french immersion

Expansion of French immersion programming brings a “sense of pride” for GPCSD

Feb 17, 2022 | 3:19 PM

On Wednesday, Grande Prairie & District Catholic Schools announced it would be expanding its French immersion learning to include O’Brien Lake West & École St-Gérard schools next year.

The district says this will include Pre-K to Grade 8 for the 2022-23 year and Pre-K to Grade 9 for the 2023-24 school year.

The decision to transition these schools into French immersion learning comes after what the GPCSD describes as steady growth over the last decade.

“This decision kind of stemmed from the continued growth of the program. This program is supported by students, staff and families,’ said GPCSD Superintendent Dr. Jessie Shirley.

“As we look to the future, what we didn’t want to do was put a community of learners in a building only to discover that we don’t have room for everybody. So, we decided that we had the population for two separate single-track immerging facilities.”

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Shirley says the Catholic school board making a decision like this comes with some pride given the smaller population of Grande Prairie.

“French immersion really has done well in this community, and we’re super proud of that at Grande Prairie Catholic.”

Shirley mentioned they chose these schools because they felt these facilities would best suit the community.

“Our current St-Gérard facility has many portables attached to it, so over the last 10 years we have slowly been growing out of that facility,” she explained.

“When the decision was made that maybe the immersion community needs a new facility, we looked at the numbers, trends and decided we don’t want to be in this exact same situation in 3-5 years. I think the board very wisely chose that this program needs two separate facilities to grow into the future.”

From now until September, the school division will focus on hiring more teachers and preparing programming for the year.

Shirley says they want to give students attending French immersion schools the same experience and opportunities as other GPCSD schools.

“It is our intent to offer the same kind of programming in both facilities. That would include Celtic Academy, our thriving band program, music program, Kindergarten Plus and our late immersion program.”

More details on programming related to O’Brien Lake West & École St-Gérard will be released over the coming months.