SRSD to gather data, survey residents on French Immersion in La Salle, La Broquerie

More data is needed.

That’s the message Seine River School Division trustees agreed on regarding adding French immersion programming in La Salle and La Broquerie, during Tuesday night’s board meeting. The decision was spurred by trustee Gary Nelson, who made a motion to add French immersion programming to the schools in both towns for the 2026-2027 school year. Trustee Wendy Bloomfield seconded the motion, which was deferred for a vote on May 12.

“There is no reason why communities in La Salle and La Broquerie cannot support an immersion program, and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t have one. The residents of those communities are being underserved,” he told the board.

Nelson noted how other communities like Ste Adolphe and Lorette have smaller populations, but the schools there offer French immersion. He pointed out La Salle has 96 students who are in École St. Norbert Immersion because there’s no option in their community. Since the division already has the student population for the programming, it wouldn’t make a financial impact, Nelson said.

Multiple trustees expressed concern over the lack of data and the tight time period for getting the program started. Trustee Theresa Bergson said evidence is needed so a budget can support any new programming added.

“The need is there. I don’t dispute that, but we have to have space, money, teachers, and all the wonderful things that go with it,” she said.

Trustee Robert Rivard echoed her concerns and said detailed numbers are needed to make any decision. While the division knows the number of students in La Broquerie, there are still unknowns on what the demand is, he said. Space at La Broquerie’s Arborgate School is already at a premium, after the division converted its library space into two classrooms in September 2025.

“If we’re not taking the whole classroom of kindergarten kids and moving them to immersion, we need another classroom, and we just don’t have the physical space,” Rivard said.

The division previously surveyed parents in the two towns in December 2025, but Nelson took issue over the survey only sent to the English-speaking schools and not wider residents. He also mentioned the survey didn’t have enough details.

“We need to stop being so narrow focused. Absolutely, this needs to be done, and I am more than frustrated with this,” Nelson said, noting he raised the same topic two years ago, but it didn’t move forward.

Chairperson Christine Roskos told the board she couldn’t support the motion because of the instability over classrooms spaces and staffing issues. Her main concern was that there aren’t enough teachers graduating who are French speakers or bilingual. Roskos said her own children have been in the division’s French immersion program for 22 years, and saw how staffing issues impact the existing programming.

“The kids would come home and say, ‘We had so-and-so as a substitute who didn’t speak French,” she told The Carillon.

She said for any expansion of French immersion programming, there needs to be a plan at both the provincial and school division levels to address the staffing issues and have more teachers graduating who speak French. If a program was created without the staffing issues addressed, Roskos said she’s worried it wouldn’t offer the quality education children deserve.

“If we introduce it in year one, can we guarantee those folks that those kids will be able to continue their French immersion programming throughout the kindergarten to Grade 8 program,” she said.

Superintendent Colin Campbell said the divisions is struggling to fill two vacant French teaching positions during the current school year, calling the staffing issues “worrisome.” To fill the gap, the division is using itinerant teachers, permanently-hired substitute teachers, to plug the holes. But out of three hired, only one speaks French.

“We want to make sure that we won’t just have an immersion program with one French-speaking staff member,” Campbell said. “That’s not really modelling how we value the program.”

He noted French language education is a crucial part of the division, with 38 percent of students already in French immersion programming.

Rivard made a new motion on directing administration to survey residents in both towns on their appetite for French immersion and to collect internal data on staffing, classroom and funding needs. The motion was passed without any deadline on when the data needed to be delivered by.

Bloomfield took issue with having no set timeline and voted against the motion.

“Let’s see what’s out there, but put some type of a deadline on it, because otherwise we’ll never get it. Something else will come up and that’s just the way it goes,” she told the board.