Dozens of parents camped out at local elementary schools Monday night in the hopes of registering their children in kindergarten French immersion programs for fall.
Tuesday marked the start of registration for the school district’s programs of choice, including French immersion, Montessori, the district’s Environmental School Project, and Kanaka Creek elementary, which has a year-round calendar.
Recent changes to the registration process give priority to students with siblings already enrolled at any school. Siblings were allowed to register for choice programs on Monday.
Others had to wait until Tuesday.
Erin Mark and her husband Andrew set up camp at 10 a.m. Monday morning in front of Pitt Meadows Elementary School to register their daughter Kayleigh for French immersion.
“For us, it’s important that our daughter go there,” Erin Mark said. “It’s a great school and a great program that offers her that added challenge.”
The school has a cap of 40 spaces for two French immersion kindergarten classes, with siblings getting priority,
“We knew there was going to be limited spaces,” Erin Mark said. “I think it’s good they give siblings priority ... but I don’t think it was right that we had to wait overnight.
“But if we didn’t go, [Kayleigh] wouldn’t get in.”
After spending nearly 24 hours waiting in line outside the school, the Mark family was able to grab one of the last French immersion spaces in at Pitt Meadows elementary.
Others weren’t so lucky.
“There were some very frustrated parents there,” said Mark.
Pitt Meadows elementary did its best to take care of parents camping out, providing coffee and donuts, running an extension cord so parents could power heaters and laptops, and leaving the school open until 11 p.m. so parents could use the school’s washrooms.
Parents also camped out in front of Eric Langton and Laity View elementary schools in Maple Ridge, where the school district’s other two primary French immersion programs are located.
In all, more than 170 children were registered for primary French immersion in the district, with just 147 spots available for next school year. That’s down from the 170 spaces in French immersion kindergarten the district has this year.
“The issue at Pitt Meadows is space,” said Laurie Meston, the school district’s deputy superintendent. “There’s already portables and modular classrooms at school ... we don’t think we can add a class at this point in time.”
Eric Langton elementary is also at capacity, she said.
Meston said the district is looking at ways to better accommodate parents who want French immersion for their children.
Some school districts have parents register their child shortly after birth if they want to get into French immersion.
Meston said while doing that might not be necessary for Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, an early registration system would give the district a better estimate of incoming French immersion students.
The school district has already looked at adding a fourth primary French immersion program. However, the lack of a suitable school currently prevents that.
Meston said the district has looked at Webster’s Corners elementary as possible site, but the school is too small.
“The issue is you need seven or eight classes to run a French immersion program,” she said. “There’s only 11 classrooms in the whole school.”
Surrounding elementary schools would be unable to accommodate English students displaced by a French immersion program at Webster’s Corners, she added.
The annual rite of lining up overnight may soon be a thing of the past, however.
School District No. 42 is currently working to develop an online school registration system that would save parents from having to lineup outside at their catchment school to register their children for kindergarten.
District staff have said that system will likely be in place for next year, but how it will be implemented remains unclear.
“That system has its own issues, as far as access is concerned,” Meston said.
However, the experience did have a silver lining for the Mark family.
“We got to get to know a lot of the other parents in Kayleigh’s grade, so that was actually kind of nice,” said Erin Mark.
• Regular kindergarten registration takes place Feb. 6 for students with enrolled siblings, and Feb. 7 to 10 for all other students. For more information about kindergarten registration, visit www.sd42.ca.