Parent’s Federation Update

Another school year is underway. Once again, students have
headed back to school, keen to return to their desks and work
on improving their skills, increase their knowledge and take full
advantage of a francophone environment that encourages
development of their cultural identity. Sound perfect?
Unfortunately, this scenario represents the ideal, but it is our
common goal. The FPFCB will continue to do everything within
its power to reach this goal. Here’s a brief look at some of the
issues we’ll be addressing during the next few months.

Preschool

The FPFCB has obtained enough funding for two early
childhood education development projects. Firstly, the British
Columbia Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women’s
Services has agreed to finance publication of a directory of
French-language daycare services in the province. We are
currently conducting the survey portion of this project. The
directory should be ready by March 31, 2004.

Secondly, through Heritage Canada’s Canada-Community
Agreement, we have obtained funding for another directory,
this one to document French-language services for preschoolers
and their families. We will begin our census of these services
shortly. Once the directory is published, we will ensure that the
information is easily accessible through the schools,
francophone community centres, and other facilities.

Lastly, a new nursery school opened in September. Les Lutins
du bois nursery school is housed in Bois-Joli School in
Tsawwassen.

School Planning Committees

Despite the rapidity with which the school planning committees
(SPCs) were formed, it appears that the francophone schools
have managed to submit a plan for academic success to the
CSFwithin the expected timeframe. Now that the CSF has

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By Marc Gicnac, STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR

approved the plan, it is extremely important to implement it as
quickly as possible. Any delay may threaten the success of the
plan. Our provincial partners are well aware that they must ensure
that SPCs receive adequate support to fulfill their task. In the
May issue of Info-Parents, we told you about our planned fall
tour of all SPCs in the province. Unfortunately, we did not receive
the funds we requested for this tour. Instead, during the
November 2003 conference, we will report to parents on progress
to date and identify the resources they will need to implement
the plan for academic success in their schools.

Intercultural Families

For quite some time, we have been working on the issue of
exogamous families, families with a non francophone parent. To
date, we have published a guide for exogamous families, /’m
with you!, which we have distributed to all of the schools. This
year, parents registering their children for kindergarten also
received copies of the guide. We have also published a pamphlet
based on this guide and we plan to distribute this pamphlet later
this fall.

We have also developed a workshop on the topic. Entitled
Exogamous families, the workshop is designed for non
francophone parents and is based on the I’m with you! guide.
We are working on school-parent communications. We have
entered into discussions with the CSF to encourage the adoption
of parameters to guide school communities in developing
communications policies that would encourage the participation
of non francophone parents in their child’s education and in the
life of the school in general. Here again, we will use the November
conference to poll members on the issue. More to follow...

Our office staff would like to wish everyone-students, parents,
teachers, directors, and support staff—a most rewarding school

year.

*

LE JOURNAL FRANCOPHONE DE LA COLOMBIE-BRITANNIQUE

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