The school merge will split up the French speaking kids into k-3 and 4-7 in two different schools. This will no longer be an “immersive” French learning experience. 

Siblings will have to attend schools in different areas of town, either forcing parents to bus them, or to drive to different schools everyday. 

Smaller children will no longer have help from their older siblings to get to school in the mornings or to get home after school.

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced children to be switched between homeschooling, and in class schooling. It has caused kids to lose the ability to use playground equipment, school events, and school assemblies. Kids have been forced to wear masks, learn through plexiglass dividers and adapt to all these changes immediately. These were all changes that were out of our control. 

Merging schools and separating kids from other French speaking children, as well as their siblings, is a choice. This is a choice that will cause more anxiety and uncertainty that is unnecessary at this time. 

Parents within this town have put careful thought and time deciding where our children will attend school. Parents that have choosen the French immersion program have done so for an immersive experience. This experience will be taken away from our kids if this merge happens. Our choice will be taken away to have our kids attend a French immersion school. 

This petition is to let the school board members know how we feel. We are the parents, the teachers, the community members of these schools. We don’t want this merge. If we are heard the board members will vote no to a school merge. They will chose to listen  to a community and the voice we have as parents choosing an education, in French, for our children. 

If the board votes for the school merge the French program will no longer be immersive. Parents will lose that choice. The French program will suffer. Younger children will no longer be able to learn from their older peers. They will no longer have reading “buddies” or role models to look up to within the school.