New French class added in Kennebecasis Valley

The Department of Education will add a satellite Grade 2 classroom for francophone students in the Kennebecasis Valley.

Education Minister Roland Haché announced on Saturday that an agreement will soon be finalized that will see Grade 2 students join the kindergarten to Grade 1 satellite classes that opened in September 2009.

The satellite classroom will be a part of the Centre scolaire Samuel-de-Champlain in Saint John.

The classroom will hold 21 students and will be situated at the Happy Clown Day Care Ltd. in Quispamsis for the group of children in kindergarten to Grade 2.

Parents in the Kennebecasis Valley, which is north of Saint John, have been petitioning the provincial government for a permanent francophone school in the growing area.

Francophone children from the Kennebecasis Valley normally bus to Saint John's École Samuel de Champlain. It is estimated there are more than 150 students from the Kennebecasis region busing to Saint John for kindergarten to Grade 5.

For those children busing into the city, some commute 90 minutes each way.

Marc Mathurin, president of the Kennebecasis Valley Parents Committee, said in a statement that the new classroom shows further progress on the drive for a new school.

"Our parents' group has been lobbying for a francophone school in the valley and views this news as a very good sign on the part of the New Brunswick government. We are encouraged by each additional classroom we obtain," Mathurin said.

The school district has said it hopes to have a permanent school in the Kennebecasis area by 2012.

Ernest Thibodeau, chair of the District 1 Education Council, said the new classroom will have a positive effect on francophone and bicultural families in the valley.

School District 1, which represents French schools between Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton, has been forced to add several new schools and expansions to keep pace with a growing population.

The Department of Education has built the new Carrefour de l'Acadie school and Sainte-Thérèse school, both in Dieppe, the École des Bâtisseurs in Fredericton and the expansion of the Centre scolaire Samuel-de-Champlain in Saint John.

The department is also planning a new kindergarten to Grade 8 school in Moncton.