The language law in Quebec has limited access to an education in English since the late 1970’s. For those of you unfamiliar with the issue, yup, we have “language police” here in Quebec. The intent of the law & its associated limitations was to preserve the French language and to encourage both anglophones and allophones to learn to speak it. I won’t get into the constitutionality or efficacy of the law here. That is a subject for another time, and perhaps another forum.

Let’s just say that if you’re concerned about all the schools in Quebec teaching in French, this simply isn’t the case. There are lots of English schools in the province, especially in the Montreal area. The issue, however, is whether you get to send your kids to one of them. One of the measures implemented in the language law was to require that anyone enrolling a child in an English school produce a certificate of eligibility to access English-language education. That little piece of paper is so precious, I know of at least one family who have framed the certificate and hung it on the wall!

If you are new to Quebec and you are coming from outside of Canada, in all likelihood you are not eligible to send your kids to school in English. If your family has lived in Quebec for generations, but no one has ever been educated in English, chances are you will have to send them to school in French. There are some exceptions, but basically it’s not easy to get that little paper for your kids unless you were educated in English somewhere in Canada.

It is important to note that the language law applies to public institutions, and as such, does not apply to homeschooling. If you are a homeschooler moving into Quebec, or if you are withdrawing your child from a French school, you may have been told that you are not permitted to educate your child at home in English. Rest assured, this is simply not true. You may educate your child at home in the language or languages of your choice.

Here is the official statement of the ministry of education (the MELS):

[L]’enfant non admissible à recevoir l’enseignement en anglais, en vertu des dispositions de la Chartre de la langue française, peut recevoir, en anglais, son enseignement à la maison puisque ces dispositions sont inapplicables dans ce cas.

My translation:
The child who, due to the provisions of the French Language Charter, is not eligible to attend an English language school, may nevertheless receive instruction at home in English; the provisions of the Charter do not apply to homeschooling.

~ La Scolarisation à Domicile, Orientations, Projet; MELS, Mai 2005

The document continues by saying that parents can register for homeschooling with either the English or French school board in their region, according to the language of instruction. (This registration is, however, a hot issue. Many feel this is not required by law.)

We are also told that, as is now the case with private education since the legal loopholes have been closed, homeschooling in English cannot be used to establish eligibility for public education later.

Folks who may benefit from this option:

• Anglophones and allophones entering Quebec from outside Canada, who would ordinarily have to send their kids to French school, and who are concerned their children will not be able to keep up with their classmates;
• Francophones without eligibility certificates, who would like their children to benefit from earlier exposure to English instruction or from a bilingual or English immersion format that is not available through the local public French-language school;
• Anyone with a child who seems to struggle a great deal with the French language, but who has no specific diagnosis of learning difficulty or other disability that may grant him eligibility, and who would therefore be required to send this child to school in French.

If you choose this option, do keep in mind that if you ever need to return your kids to public school they will have to attend a French school. It is wise to provide some French instruction!

The bottom line: If you are not ordinarily eligible to send your children to English school you have a legal right to give them an English education by opting to homeschool.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

The content of this blog is offered in the spirit of sharing information and ideas, and all factual information is accurate to the best of my knowledge at the time of writing. Please be aware that laws change and new requirements may be imposed on homeschooling parents. I am not an expert. You should consult legal counsel for the best advice on homeschool legalities and your rights as a home educator.

When we tell people that we’re homeschooling most of them are quite interested and even complimentary. But because most people aren’t too well informed about homeschooling we’re often asked, “Is it legal?” The Bitter Homeschooler’s Wish List has a fun answer to that question, if you like sarcasm & you’re feeling kinda tired of having people question your status as a law-abiding citizen.

If you’re thinking about homeschooling - or if you’re moving from one jurisdiction to another - and you want to be sure you will be fulfilling your legal obligations, this really is a valid question.

In the broadest of strokes and to the best of my knowledge, homeschooling is at this moment legal in every Canadian province and territory. It is also legal in all 50 US states. (Yes, there’s been some controversy in California recently, but I believe the most current news from that state has been that it’s still quite legal. If you’re in California I suggest you get your information from a trusted association like HSLDA, NHELD or CHELD.)

Knowing your legal obligations in a given jurisdiction is the more complicated part, especially if the law is rather vague. The Quebec Education Act says that a child aged 6-16 must attend public school. There is an exception for home education, and to be eligible for the exemption the parents must meet their obligations under this section of the law. Here it is (in its official English translation - in cases where the translation varies from the original, it is the French that will be accepted as the final authority):

15.  The following students are exempt from compulsory school attendance:…..

…. 4) a student who receives home schooling and benefits from an educational experience which, according to an evaluation made by or for the school board, are equivalent to what is provided at school.

~ (R.S.Q., chapter I-13.3: Education Act, Section 15(4). Updated to 1 August 2008)

OK, so what constitutes an equivalent educational experience? What do I need to teach my kids in order to meet my obligations under the Education Act? A document issued by the ministry of education to school boards in 2005 discusses this equivalence:

La notion d’équivalence peut être interprétée dans le sens que l’enseignement dispensé et l’expérience éducative vécue doivent permettre à l’enfant d’avoir les connaissances et les compétences suffisantes pour qu’il puisse, s’il le souhaite, intégrer ou réintégrer le système scolaire public ou privé.

(My translation:
The notion of equivalence in this sense can be interpreted as the teaching given and the educational experience lived by the student, that permit him to have sufficient knowledge and competencies* so he may enter or return to the public or private school system if he so wishes.)
* The ministry of education uses the term “competency” in discussions of subject-specific and cross-curricular learning objectives. These are very specific competencies as outlined in the Quebec Education Program, and not skills in general.

~ La Scolarisation à Domicile, Orientations, Projet; MELS, Mai 2005
(I got my copy through one of the forums at AQED before they switched to their new web site. I don’t know whether they still have it available, but it’s been exceedingly difficult to find elsewhere.)

So if you are a home educator in Quebec, to be meeting your legal obligations under the Education Act you need to be sure your kids could enter or return to school with no great need for adaptations. In other words, Johnny should be able to read the textbooks the school is using and to do whatever other reading is assigned. He should be ready to understand the math, French, social studies or science concepts the teachers will be presenting. He may not have read the exact books or studied the exact same subjects in history, but the knowledge he has gained should give him a solid foundation for learning alongside his classmates without the teach having to give him too many special assignments or individual tutoring sessions.

Furthermore, he should have a set of competencies that will be useful to him in his learning process. These are different for each cycle of school, but may include things like having some coping strategies that he can use when he encounters an unfamiliar word, or understanding the concept of place value. Other competencies are being open to others’ opinions & experiences, and learning to share some of his own. There is also trying to express himself in French, and using a variety of types of literature. As I said, these vary to some extent. Consult the Quebec Education Program to know what is expected for your child’s grade level.

Check this post on starting out for links to the various parts of the Quebec Education Program. I’ve included a good number of other links that may help you as you begin to formulate your education plan, too. You should be off to a good start!

Next in this series of posts:
Evaluation of Equivalence - looking at several published opinions on what should be evaluated and how

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This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

The content of this blog is offered in the spirit of sharing information and ideas, and all factual information is accurate to the best of my knowledge at the time of writing. Please be aware that laws change and new requirements may be imposed on homeschooling parents. I am not an expert. You should consult legal counsel for the best advice on homeschool legalities and your rights as a home educator.

Quebec’s Assistant Deputy Minister of Education for Anglophone Community Services, Leo La France, is pleased with the progress that has been made in preparing English textbooks to support the new grade 10 curriculum to be implemented in the fall. “I think we achieved quite a bit,” he told The Gazette this week. He then went on to explain that a translation of the new math book will be available for students, but not all the chapters will be ready at the start of the school year.

History and science books will lag even further behind, but La France has a message to anyone concerned about a level playing field for both English & French students: “You have to remember that the French textbooks are just being approved now for next year.”

To verify that statement you can check the web site of the ministry for approved materials. The date of certification is available for each listing.

Math Texts:

There are currently three approved French-language texts for grade 10, the latest certificate date being 24 April 2008. None of the teaching guides are yet approved, though, and two of the three texts has a second volume which has not yet received approval. The texts are all on the publisher web sites, ready for order.

There are no English-language texts whatsoever approved for high school math. Only one publisher offers a complete series of approved English math texts for the primary years. There is one additional, two-year program for students in grades 3 & 4. A full selection of French primary texts is offered, by four different publishers.

History Texts:

One French-language text is currently available for the new history program. The student books were approved in September 2007, and the teacher’s guide is awaiting certification. The materials are all ready for order on the publishers web site.

No English-language texts are approved for history at the secondary level and no materials are expected until fall 2009. One English text series is finally available for the primary history course, and was approved as of March 2008.

Science Texts:

A total of four French-language texts have been approved, the latest being 25 April 2008. As was the case with the math texts, some of the second volumes and teaching guides are still awaiting government approval. All are available through the publishers.

No English-language texts are approved for grade 10 science, and none are expected before fall 2009.

Also worth mention, there is only one approved science text available in English for the first years of high school. It received its certification 6 May 2008, well after the curriculum reform was implemented at this level.

Why the Lack of Texts?

The schools and school boards are getting the heat from concerned parents who want to know how their children are expected to pass provincial exams and begin to prepare for CEGEP if they don’t have textbooks, workbooks and other important learning materials. But the teachers and boards blame the government, saying that they don’t have the staff or budgets to translate texts from French.

The government, in their turn, say the problem comes from not having enough translators or is because of publishers. It isn’t profitable, they say, to release English & French versions simultaneously. In fact, publishers may be reluctant to create English versions of their texts, at all. Only the small number of English schools in Quebec will want to purchase them, after all.

As noted above, French-language texts are sometimes approved barely in time. Last spring Quebec’s French teachers were complaining that the books wouldn’t be ready in time for the 2007-2008 school year.

What’s Being Done:

A working committee was formed in April 2008 to look into the problem of textbook availability, 9 years into the education reform. It has met several times over the spring, but isn’t planning to meet again until the fall.

After considerable uproar from parents, teachers, and school boards, the government has agreed to have the grade 10 math text translated by non-profit organization LEARN, whose board of directors is composed mainly of executives from Quebec’s English school boards. The book will be delivered in three (presumably black and white) spiral bound sections throughout the 2008-2009 year. The first section will be delivered on or around September 1st, but likely with no time for teachers to preview the material or plan lessons.

We can expect to see a single volume math text eventually, though it is uncertain whether this would be a legitimate text with colour, images, attractive layouts and study aids, or whether it will remain a sort of improvised thing with all the visual appeal of a talk show transcript.

By comparison French materials currently available are full colour texts with teacher’s manuals that include transparencies and reproducibles. Some publishers also offer workbooks, correction manuals, testing materials, CD-ROM’s, and web sites with even more support material.

School boards are doing their best to prepare teachers to teach the new curricula for all subjects affected. Professional development trainings have been given since winter and will continue to be offered into the fall.

Although the exams to be written are the same throughout the province, they will be corrected at the school level during a transition period. This allows teachers to use their discretion if students have not been adequately exposed to certain skills or topic areas.

School boards have been given the option of using the existing science curriculum for one more year. Lester B Pearson has announced that they will introduce the new science curriculum in fall 2009. Parents from other boards might want to contact their schools and encourage them to follow suit, if they haven’t had any news on the science program implementation.

***

To Think On:

1. Was the availability of English texts considered when this curriculum reform was dreamt up, a decade ago? And why does the new curriculum preclude the use of English-language texts from elsewhere, when this was previously a viable option?
2. If even French textbooks are getting last minute approval - and this a decade into the reform - has anyone considered that perhaps the proposed changes were too ambitious?

***

Are Quebec’s students gaining or losing from this reform? Textbooks are only one concern with this reform. Report cards were another - and that ended up in two different sets of new report cards for parents & teachers to wrestle with, over the last decade.

Budgetary constraints and lack of resources should not be accepted as an excuse for the lack of textbooks. The government knew these books would be needed when it proposed the reforms; the proposals should also have covered the question of the time and resources required to create the books.

Looking back on the past 9 years of the new curriculum, it might have been better to create a more modest plan for educational reform and to see it fully implemented, rather than to make such sweeping changes.

***

What You Can Do:

At a meeting with angry West Island parents, Jacques Cartier MNA Geoff Kelly told the public to express its disappointment with the proposed solutions to the textbook crisis.

Consult this list to get the contact information for your MNA.

Education Minister Michelle Courchesne can be contacted at ministre@mels.gouv.qc.ca or consult this page for other modes of contact.

Contact information for Premier Jean Charest can be found on this page. There is a form for email, or you can send him an old fashioned letter.

***

Sources:

“English students to get math books: Ministry of Education” (Kristin Morency & Remo Zaccagna, The Suburban)

“Parents demand English textbooks” (940 Montreal)

“Quebec sends texts message: Make do” (Brenda Branswell, The Gazette)

“Too Little, Too Late” (Raffy Boudjikanian, The Monitor)

Quebec’s approved texts list (English texts, French texts)

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This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

Dojogirl has been bugging us to buy her a cell phone, for going on two years now. Pretty much every adult I know has one of these devices, and a good number of the teens now have one as well. Cell phones have gone from being an expensive item used mostly by adults who needed them for business, to a fairly affordable device without which most people over age 13 won’t leave home.

As cell phones have become more sophisticated we’ve seen increasing costs related to things like text messaging, and there is also the need to replace a phone frequently in order to keep up with the latest technology. Besides the question of whether we want to encourage our children to create this kind of negative environmental impact, there is also the financial burden which is generally borne by parents. Teens can easily fall into expensive usage patterns that they will later be unable to afford, rather than learning moderation with their first phones.

When we started seeing kids bring their phones to school a whole other can of worms: Students using cell phones to cheat during tests. Bullies using picture phones to take inappropriate photos in bathrooms and locker rooms - and subsequently distribute them so as to humiliate other young people. Teachers reporting that cell phone use was distracting their classes.

So it wasn’t surprising when schools banned cell phones. Some schools and districts simply banned their use during class time. But much of the inappropriate use can take place outside of class, and cell phones are now the item most often lost or stolen at school. It doesn’t take a genius to see why some districts have banned bringing cell phones to school altogether.

New York City is one place where all schools have banned cell phones completely. The move was made in 2005, and the issue is still being dragged through the courts. In April 2008 New York Supreme Court Justice Angela Mazzarelli ruled in favour of the ban, but it is likely this decision will be appealed by angry parents who feel their children need the phones with them at all times, in case of emergencies. In the meantime, students are apparently smuggling phones into school or paying bodega (that’s “dépanneur” for my Québecois readers) employees to “babysit” them - a practice which resulted in at least one case where the employee absconded with both the money and the phones…

I tell you, the debate just gives me one more reason to homeschool my kids - right through the high school years! My way of looking at the safety issue is this: if I can’t trust my children’s own behaviour, or if the world has become so unfriendly since I was their age, that I don’t want them to be out unsupervised then the best place for them is with their family. No cell phone is going to take care of them better than their parents can. In fact, that phone might just give us all a false sense of security.

I’d rather my kids were prepared for life in the world by a few more years of spending time with family, and being not only supervised but having the opportunity to discuss potentially risky situations and behaviours as the opportunities arise in daily life. This is something you will never get in a school group, whether private or public, because as soon as you’ve got one adult supervising more than 5 or so kids you’ve become institutionalized and you have to take special precautions to compensate for the fact that one adult really isn’t equipped to watch that many kids.

Schools have buddy systems, name tags or uniforms, younger kids holding onto ropes, checklists and travel by chartered bus, locked schools where kids are kept within the gates and walls, and even a parent with legitimate business must sign in and get a hall pass in order to gain access. While I do not at all deny these measures are important to the safety of such a large group of children in the care of a handful of adults, the fact is that this is not preparation for the real world. It might be preparation to be part of other institutions, but it isn’t going to do an adequate job of teaching anyone’s kids to behave on the street, in the library, at the park or the grocery store or the city hall - well, except in those instances when we need to stand quietly in a line or raise our hands and wait to be called upon before we speak.

Institutions tend to take both choice and responsibility away from anyone, young or old. Be it a school, a long term care hospital, a prison, etc. an institution involves a large group of clients and a significantly smaller group of staff. Routines and regulations are made chiefly with the goal of keeping order, with being fair and giving the same treatment to everyone - rather than with giving each client the things he or she needs. This kind of system can actually encourage abuses such as cheating, because the clients (like high school students) sense its rigidity and frequently feel they do not have a say in making the decisions that affect them on a daily basis. So while on the surface an institution is supposed to promote respect, order and ethical behaviour it is not unknown for it to also teach coping skills like lying, cheating and plagiarism to at least some of its clients - probably a large number if the rules and procedures are perceived as especially unfair.

I’ve rambled quite long on this one, but I just wanted to leave my readers with one last thought about school/public safety and cell phones. Many parents who felt that the cell phone ban was unconstitutional remarked that they wanted to know where their children were at all times, and they particularly mentioned concerns over school shootings and terrorist acts. Indeed, in some recent cases it was a call from a cell phone that was the first alert to 911. In the case of an event that knocks out school wide communications this could mean help would reach the school promptly. However, it is important to keep in mind that if every person in a school of 1000+ students got on their cell phone at the same time - whether to report the emergency to authorities, to communicate with parents or check on the safety of friends, or perhaps simply out of boredom during a lock down or evacuation - networks could easily be overwhelmed.

This is what happened after the fall 2006 shooting at Montreal’s Dawson College. I don’t think it made a very big difference to the delivery of emergency services in this case, as police happened to be already on the scene and were able to bring in all the required services by radio rather than cell phone. But I imagine that a number of families were disturbed when they couldn’t reach the students who were evacuated and needing help to get home. If there is one time when I do think we should fall back on institutions, it’s during an emergency. Especially in large cities with so many strangers to coordinate, the best equipped people to deal with communication and logistics are the emergency services providers. It’s something to think about…

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

From the CBC Radio web site:

What would you ask Bell?

Posted by Elizabeth Bowie on April 10 at 09:49 PM

Update: This interview has been rescheduled for Tuesday, April 15, 2008.

This week’s episode of Spark is all about “Access.”

On Monday, April 14 Tuesday, April 15, 2008, Nora will interview Mirko Bibic, Bell Canada’s chief of regulatory affairs. Their topics will include:

• Net neutrality
• Unlimited internet plans
• The last mile in Canada

Do you have questions about these for Mr. Bibic? Leave your (on-topic) questions in the comments below or email them to spark@cbc.ca. We’ll do our best to include as many as possible in the interview.

We’ll post the full unedited interview here on Monday Tuesday afternoon, so check back then to hear it. A shorter, edited version will then air on Spark on April 16 and 19.

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About Spark:

Spark is a blog, a weekly radio show and a podcast. Host Nora Young leads an ongoing discussion of technology and culture, with a measure of irreverence thrown in for fun.

Spark airs on CBC Radio One

• Wednesdays at 11:30 a.m. (12:00 NT)
• Saturdays at 4:00 p.m. (4:30 NT)

Visit Spark online at the CBC web site

Subscribe to the podcast (free weekly podcast, or podcast + blog audio)

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Photo courtesy CBC’s Spark. Thanks!