French Immersion parents join catchment area debate

In our April 10 issue, I reported on an Ancaster Meadow School council meeting where parents asked school board officials to change catchment area boundaries so Ancaster Meadow graduates can receive bus service to Ancaster High School. To parents, it just makes perfect sense. Ancaster kids should go to an Ancaster High School. But the board's catchment area rules put Ancaster Meadow within the Sir Allan MacNab catchment area. That means students can receive bus service to MacNab, but parents who want transportation to Ancaster High must pay about $700 each out-of-pocket. Many have done just that and others are on a wait-list. See last week's story here:
http://www.ancasternews.com/news/article/170029

The catchment issue is also affecting French Immersion. Here's an update.


Parents urge school catchment changes

French Immersion parents in the Meadowlands are asking Hamilton’s public school board to change school catchment boundaries to allow their children to attend Ancaster’s Fessenden School, instead of Norwood Park School on the central Mountain.
The French Immersion parents are not alone in their quest to alter the catchment boundaries. Earlier this month, more than two dozen parents who attended an Ancaster Meadow school council meeting said they also want the catchments changed to allow Ancaster Meadow graduates to attend Ancaster High School.
Ying Chan, a co-founder of Ancaster Parents for French Immersion, helped establish the public board’s first French Immersion program in Ancaster in 2008. When Ms. Chan and other members of APFI made presentations to the school board on French Immersion enrollment projections for 2008, the committee included the Meadowlands area. To maintain enrollment levels in Ancaster and ensure the Fessenden program isn’t cancelled due to lack of interest, Ms. Chan said the board should consider making Ancaster Meadow part of the Fessenden French Immersion catchment area.
According to current board policy, bus service is available for students from the Ancaster Meadow catchment area who attend Norwood Park, beginning in Grade 1. But transportation service is not available from the Ancaster Meadow area to Fessenden, because the school is considered out of the catchment area. That’s despite the fact Ancaster Meadow is geographically closer to Fessenden than Norwood Park.
“Nobody is going to drive their kids to Fessenden everyday for six or seven years,” said Ms. Chan, citing the lack of public transportation from Ancaster.


“It would make much more sense to keep Ancaster students within the community, using Fessenden, as well as reducing not only the students' travel time but also board's future expense in transportation,” Ms. Chan wrote in an e-mail to Krys Croxall, board superintendent of education for program and assessment.
Ms. Croxall was unavailable for comment this week.
French Immersion consultant Christine Rees said catchment area changes must be approved by the school board.
“It’s quite a lengthy process,” Ms. Rees said.
Due to the same catchment area guidelines, dozens of secondary students who live in the Ancaster Meadow area are paying $700 annually for private bus service to Ancaster High School. Ancaster Meadow graduates currently fall within the Sir Allan MacNab Secondary School catchment area on the west Mountain. In accordance with board policy, parents who intend to enroll their children in an out-of-catchment school, such as Ancaster High, must make alternate transportation arrangements.
Ms. Chan hopes that by changing the catchment areas, both the French Immersion and Ancaster High School catchment discrepancies can be fixed.
Hamilton Wentworth District School Board superintendent Scott Sincerbox has announced parents will have an opportunity to comment on transportation issues when the board consults the public for an accommodation review this fall.