Discussions at the Board as to whether it needed three entry points or not have been ongoing since OBE and CBE amalgamation into the OCDSB in 1998. Discussions about the relative merits of French Immersion programming of one kind or another, Early, Middle or Late, and of whether Immersion was more about student streaming and less about the French have also been ongoing for a long time. Concerns about the perceived second status of Core French (CF) have been aired for years. Overlay this with concerns with budget (and different sorts of French programming attract different Ministry dollars as well), concerns with support of Special Education students and English as a Second Language students in the French as a Second Language (FSL) context, concerns with equity of access to programming and with the quality of French and also English language outcomes, concerns about threshold numbers of students required for a program, number of programs in a school and school size and attendant school accommodations questions and one has a right witch's brew of concerns and interests and intertwined issues which have heretofore proved to be intractable. Efforts to seriously review how we have provided FSL (both FI and CF) have been tried for years without achieving a consensus outcome and with little forward movement.

It is a huge credit to both the Board staff and Trustees involved in the joint effort on the Board's recently struck Ad hoc FSL Review Committee that a set of clear and serious proposals have been generated for consideration. The Committee has recommended that the Board formally consult on the phasing out of Late French Immersion as an entry point option at the OCDSB. Early and Middle French Immersion would be retained. The ad hoc committee oversaw a comprehensive literature review and a lot of other proposals were entertained by the review committee but were rejected. The ad hoc committee's literature review findings and recommendations were presented recently at Education Committee and the recommendations have been approved for broad consultation. The ad hoc committee now will start to look at Secondary School French language instruction. I think it likely that these recommendations will come to Board. If you are interested then please engage with this material and make sure to make your views get known via the link or via a public delegation you can make to Education Committee or to the Board.

It should be noted that quite likely amongst the most important and potentially transformative recommendations of the ad hoc committee actually will not go for consultation and will be reviewed and taken under advisement for staff implementation or not and also will not go to Board. I find these recommendations to be the most exciting ones however and you will find them with the rest of the FSL committee reference material. Findings include:

1. French Immersion does not affect English language acquisition - there should be no fears of this amongst any parents,
2. Special Needs students do as well and no worse in French Immersion as in Core French or English programs as long as they have comparable access to supports (NB: if special needs students no longer are regularly streamed out of FI programs but are instead supported in FI programs then they will not be overrepresented in Core French programs as they currently are),
3. Immigrant students or those for whom English is a second language do no worse and may do better in French Immersion programs,
4. Core French instructional practices can be greatly improved through use of AIM and other techniques,
5. Oral language acquisition may be more important and hiring native French language instructors may be more important than hiring FSL credentialed native English language speakers for FI purposes.

There will be disbelief amongst some educators or school administrators or parents about some or all of these 'secondary' findings. To me however they are a breath of fresh air. I will be watching and waiting to see how staff propose to implement these findings. The potential benefits to Core French and also FI students are huge. The phase out of LFI is almost of secondary importance to me in comparison - as important a decision as that is. The research report the committee generated has been sent to the Ontario School Boards Association for their consideration as they lobby the government to undertake a review of Core French instructional practices for all Boards in Ontario. This is potentially all very exciting.

Still to debate much at all are questions of whether in general dual track (Core French and an FI program) schools or single track schools (just one of the other) are better from a student transitions view, a viable numbers view, a neighbourhood schools view, a pedagogical quality view, a costing view. Other questions remain unaddressed as well. With some more decisions, this whole debate has the potential to drive school accommodation reviews in part. This may be as it should be as, in my view, programming should in general drive accommodations as we are a learning institution first and foremost and we are or should be about building citizens and giving students the skills to build themselves. This is all potentially an excellent start to a very knotty set of inter-related problems however regardless of where one sits on the numbers of tracks in schools.

• The literature review
  
• The original recommendation to Education Committee (NB: appendix A has the all-important 'additional' recommendations) ...
  
• The Board-approved consultation plan
  
• The public comments input link
  

Your views are very welcome - please engage with the broad consultation opportunities afforded you (rf. the link) and / or let me know what you think.