Parents of Grade 2 students at Hilson Avenue Public School were shocked last week when they received a message from its principal “clarifying” the future of middle French immersion at the school.
Middle French immersion at the Westboro school will be phased out over the next three years and will be offered only to students in Grades 4 to 6 next September, according to the message. If families want French immersion, children currently in Grade 2 will have to move to other schools.
The news blindsided parents, who now face a tough choice, said Alex Worobey, who has two older children who will remain at Hilson Avenue in middle French immersion, and another in Grade 2.
The first choice is to remain at Hilson Avenue, where his son has a spot in the after-school child care program, Worobey said. That option means no disruption, but it also means no French immersion.
The second choice is to move his son to another school for French immersion. That would create another set of problems. There’s a long waitlist for after-school care. On top of that, his son would be joining an immersion class with classmates who have been in full French immersion since Grade 1, Worobey said.
Alicia Robblee has one son old enough to remain in middle immersion in Hilson Avenue, but she has a second son in Grade 2 and is in the same limbo as Worobey.
‘It’s just a single grade of kids. It feels really unfair,” Robblee said.
Phasing out middle immersion was in a package of recommendations that accompanied the controversial
elementary program review
at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board last spring. The review was aimed at streamlining program offerings and balancing school populations and was
approved by trustees
.
However, the school board was
placed under provincial supervision
in June.
Bob Plamondon, who was appointed as supervisor by the provincial government, announced in October that he had
decided to cancel the boundary changes
, although he acknowledged the
boundaries could change eventually
.
As proposed, the elementary program review would have been “chaotic,” Plamondon said.
“The number of exemptions needed to keep siblings together or accommodate childcare needs would have required millions in transitional funding. Additional costs to equip and reconfigure schools would have required millions more,” he said.
Plamondon also told parents that implementation of two new streams, French immersion and English with core French, would begin in the 2026–27 school year, along with the gradual phase-out of middle French immersion.
“There may be consolidation of the middle French immersion programs to fewer sites, over time, if required for operational purposes,” he said.
Robblee and Worobey were both relieved when boundary changes were cancelled. Now they say they still face upheaval.
“It was like we were getting two different messages,” Worobey said.
The OCDSB did not respond to a request for more details about changes to middle immersion and how many schools and students could be affected next year.
According to the recommendations made last May, middle French immersion will be eliminated, but students currently in Grades 2 and 3 of the English program will retain an option to enrol in middle French immersion in Grade 4 in September 2025 and September 2026.
In most cases, middle French immersion remains in the current school locations during the phase-out period. However, there are a couple of situations where it will be necessary to relocate a middle French immersion program effective September 2026 as part of broader school configuration changes.
Under the recommendations, the last cohort of middle French immersion students would enter Grade 4 in September 2026 and complete Grade 8 by the end of the 2030-2031 school year. There will also be “fluid entry” to French immersion, allowing flexible entry into immersion beginning in Grade 1 through Grade 3.
Parents will have to make their decisions in January, Robblee said. She noted that, under the elementary program review, the plan was to offer early French immersion in all schools.
Worobey said he knew middle immersion was being phased out, but he didn’t expect to get an email saying his son could be relocating schools. The less costly alternative would be to grandfather Grade 2 students in middle immersion at Hilson Avenue until French immersion is offered at every school — or to offer French immersion at Hilson Avenue with all students starting from the same baseline, he said.
“I spent most of last year fighting the elementary programs review,” Robblee said. “When it was cancelled, I was incredibly relieved. It was amazing. My son wouldn’t have to change schools. Now, months later, we find we’re back at square one.”
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