Final fight for Levack parents as cuts to French Immersion program loom

Parents whose children are in French Immersion at Levack Public School are trying to make a last ditch effort to save the program.

In February, the Rainbow District School Board decided to discontinue the program following an accommodation review. By September 2018, students who want to take French Immersion will be bused to a school in Chelmsford.

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Dahnja Schoengen, whose six-year-old son attends Levack Public School, said she was a part of a group of parents who tried to change the school board's mind.

"We feel that our educational choices for our children are important and that we shouldn't just be dictated to for cost saving measures," Schoengen said.

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"It's been even harder hit after that because then the board came out and said 'we actually have a two million dollar surplus, not a deficit', and I'm like 'so hands off our program," she said.

Schoengen said the school board challenged parents to come up with creative solutions to the possible closures, and parents in Levack did they tried to get community partnerships.

But she says nothing happened with these creative solutions when they passed them along to the board.

Losing program first step inLevack becoming 'ghost town'

Nickel Belt MPP France Glinas has been advocating along with theparents to keep smaller schools in the north open.

Glinas said that eliminating the French Immersion program would be the first step in the school's eventual closure.

"I am worried about Levack. If they lose that last school and the less students go to it the more chances that it will get closed, the more chances that Levack will become like many other communities in Nickel Belt, a ghost town," she said.

Schoengen said parents are already pulling their students out of Levack Public school or are deciding to move out of Levack and Onapingfor the upcoming school year.

"It feels like we are forgotten," she said.