P.E.I.’s French-language schools are now more inclusive after the board that governs them recently adopted a revised admissions policy.
While the practical changes involve evaluation tools for parents who don't have a constitutional right to a French-language education under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the language in the new policy formalizes procedures already in place, said Gilles Benoit, chairman of the Commission scolaire de langue française (CSLF).
"We have made sure that everybody on P.E.I. could be accepted to French education as a first language."
Those revisions specify how a child from parents or grandparents who do not qualify under Section 23 of the charter or the grandparent clause — a policy the board retained — can receive a French-language education in P.E.I. The board can admit children of non-right holder parents by virtue of Section 26 of the Education Act, which put into policy how the board can admit children of non-right holder parents.
The need for the revisions were to address changes in the province since the last major revisions in 2003, said Benoit.
"We had to look at all our policies and with the arrival of newcomers, we didn't have anything in our policy, so we had to put (in) an update."
The grandparent clause guarantees access to French-language schools for students whose grandparents learned French as their first language and still understand it and who received part of their elementary education in French or who have one grandchild who is presently enrolled in a French-language school.
This acts as an extension of the rights guaranteed under Section 23, which applies to the children of parents who received their primary or secondary school instruction in French.
The board also revised or adopted new policies related to the use of electronic devices as learning tools in class, bus transportation and ensuring the safety and security of students, teachers, parents and others within schools.
