Thursday, August 19, 2010

French Immersion and the kids who are drowning in it!

I don't know if this situation is common throughout schools that have embraced French Immersion for a portion of their students, but our rural school of 300 children has been dealing with this transition for sometime, with no clear solutions ahead.  My son has ADHD, which seems to be common these days, and is in a mixed grade 7/8 class with about 30 other students, who also struggle with ADHD, or other learning disabilities.  There is one teacher's aid, and allot of chaos.  Three years ago, I was talking to my son's new teacher, trying to ensure that all the provisions outlined in Matt's IEP (Individual Education Plan) could be exercised, such as preferred seating, extended time for tests and assignments, help with note taking and recording homework assignmentts.  It was a rude awakening to discover that an IEP was almost impossible to achieve in an environment where there are 2 separate grades being taught simultaneously, with 30 kids who all have their own IEP, and are there because they don't have the ability to measure up to a French Immersion curriculum.  Refusing to accept this, I plunged into the year, and advocated with all my strength for Matt's plan to be executed but to no avail.  All I achieved was to alienate the teacher, and find Matthew stuck in the middle wishing that I would stop asking the teacher questions!!! So it's almost the end of summer, and the School year looms ahead...both Matt and I are looking forward to it!!!!!!......NOT!

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