The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s education committee quashed a motion, to move Lisgar Collegiate Institute’s gifted program to Gloucester High School in September 2011.
Orleans-Cumberland trustee John Shea proposed the motion in order to reduce the up to 50 km one-way commute some eastend gifted French immersion students must take in order to attend the gifted French immersion program at Merivale High. The motion was defeated 7-2.
Other trustees said the Ottawa-East trustee’s solution was too extreme and did not warrant moving the program from Lisgar, one of the province’s top-rated secondary high schools.
Lisgar parents’ main concern was that the change would disrupt their childrens’ education and increase the commute for most of the 300 gifted Lisgar students who come from all over the city.
Shea’s rationale for the move was that Lisgar is currently at 136 per cent of its capacity as measured by the Ministry of Education’s functional ministry capacity and because of this it would be incapable of adding an immersion program.
Shea said that the much larger Gloucester high has the capacity to combine its current gifted English program with that of a new gifted French immersion program.
However school board staff, which didn’t endorse the motion, noted the province is currently considering changing its French language streams to make extended and immersion courses the same level.
The change would reduce the distinction between immersion and extended French certificates by the fact that immersion requires ten French credits rather than seven.
The province has not committed to the change that would facilitate establishing an immersion program at Lisgar.
The difference between commuting from Orleans to Lisgar as opposed to Gloucester is only three minutes using OC Transpo.
Grade 10 Lisgar student Emma Graham said she wouldn’t want to see Lisgar’s program moved to Gloucester because at Lisgar she has found many friends who share the same interests,
“I’m really into science fairs and at Lisgar there are a lot of other kids who share my desire to learn and my curiosity,” says Graham.
Graham, along with a classmate made a presentation to the committee to demonstrate the value of Lisgar as it is.
Lisgar school council member Rachel Eugster argued that Lisgar was in fact not over-capacity and that the school’s record of excellence while far over capacity is proof.
She said the way the province measures school capacity is 12 years old and outdated and shouldn’t prevent the school from solving the East-end commute problem by offering immersion at the school.
“It doesn’t make sense to push the enrolment down to that artificial level just because of a piece of paper,” said Eugster