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French-Immersion
Assignment Changed

By Scott MacKeen
Staff Writer
4/22/10
The School Committee has voted to change how first-graders entering the French Immersion program get assigned to a school next year.

School officials say the change is a slight variation on the previous policy, which relied heavily on grandfathering new French students into the same school that a sibling attended.

While the grandfathering policy will be maintained and French Immersion will continue to be housed at all four elementary schools, the new policy sets a cap on the number of students in each classroom. Also, while no family will be denied the opportunity to enter the French program, it might not be in their neighborhood school.

In addition, grandfathering will only be allowed to the extent that it keeps classrooms below the class-size threshold of 26 students. If more students with a sibling in a certain school enrolled in French Immersion, a lottery would take place to determine which students are grandfathered into that school.

For example, if a French classroom of 26 is set at Glover, and 35 students with a sibling in that school enroll, all of the students will be placed in the lottery to determine who gets in. According to the plan, the students who do not “win” the lottery will be assigned to a so-called auxiliary classroom, at a school where there is space available.

After students are assigned to a school for year-one French Immersion, they will remain there throughout their elementary education.

School Committee member Glenn Pavlicek noted that there might be some flexibility in the model class size of 26 if the number of enrollees exceeding that limit is small.

“We have to stop short of a promise,” he said, referring to the class-size cap. “Obviously, you’re not going to create [an auxiliary] class of eight students.”

Instead of establishing small auxiliary classes, Pavlicek said, the solution may be to distribute students not chosen in the lottery across the district, which he said might create classes of one or two above the cap.

According to this year’s enrollment information, there are two elementary French classrooms with more than 26 students: a first-grade class at Cunningham with 27 and another at Glover with 28.

However, first-grade enrollment – the grade students must join French Immersion – is expected to jump next year. This year’s kindergarten class of 341 is the biggest in years, according to Assistant Superintendent John Phelan.

“We’re going to have concerns with class-size issues next year regardless of what program families choose,” he said.

“There may be very few rooms across the district [for additional first-grade classes next year],” added Pavlicek.

In addition, Phelan said, the School Department has had to abandon its policy of having classroom aides for elementary classrooms of more than 25 students due to funding.

“That money was available through stimulus funds [this year]. That was one-time funding. We have not budgeted [teacher aides] for any class-size issues for next year,” he said.

The English Option

Besides French Immersion, families entering elementary have the option of enrolling in the English program with Foreign Language in the Elementary Schools, which is Spanish. School Superintendent Mary Gormley said although FLES was originally offered in half-hour sessions four days per week at each elementary grade level, the program has been cut back over the years, and was eliminated completely in first grade.

At Gormley’s request, the School Committee voted to restore one half-hour session of FLES to first-graders next year. The session will require a 0.2 position, Gormley said. The Warrant Committee’s proposed fiscal year 2011 budget, which adds about $450,000 to the School Department budget, is enough to restore seven teaching positions school officials say would otherwise be cut. One of those would be the part-time Spanish teacher, according to the plan.

School Committee member Mary Kelly was the only dissenting vote in adding back FLES to first grade. She said she sees it as a “one-year solution,” adding she thinks it will suffer future cuts again.

“At the elementary level, the only places you can cut are art, music, gym and FLES,” she said.

However, Gormley said she is committed to keeping the FLES that the committee agreed to restore.

“I’m going to try very, very hard to make this a commitment we can keep,” the superintendent said.

Gormley also announced a goal of keeping English elementary classes under 24 students next year. This year, seven English-program classes are over that number, the highest being a fifth-grade class at Collicot and a fourth-grade class at Tucker, both at 27.