NLSD to Move Cold Lake French Immersion Program to Art Smith

After consulting parents and community members, the Board of Trustees for Northern Lights School Division (NLSD) has voted to merge its French Immersion classes to Art Smith Aviation Academy in Cold Lake. Principal, Chris Vinning says the school is excited to be the school of choice and is prepared to take on the extra students.

“The Board of Trustees passed a motion [on Wednesday] to relocate all the French Immersion programming to Art Smith,” confirms Principal Vining, “that’s pretty exciting for us. We pushed pretty hard to be able to have [this programming]. We think we’re a good fit and our French Immersion program is really strong; we’re looking forward to having it.”

The Board decided to look into the French Immersion program and whether or not to make changes to the program a couple of months ago. In January, Communications Officer for NLSD, Nicole Garner, explained the reason for the merging of the program to one school was due to a drop in enrollment and the Board wanted to keep the program viable.

“We have approximately sixty students in our program,” Vinning says around 50 students attend North Star Elementary and Cold Lake Middle School. The students will be given the opportunity to transfer to Art Smith to finish their French Immersion studies. “Obviously, the parents will have some choices to make, whether it’s the program or location [of the school]. They can still choose Holy Cross or Assumption, who offer French Immersion through the Catholic system, but we’re certainly hopeful that they will come to Art Smith.”

Northern Lights has gone out of their way to support the program and we’re hopeful our families will stick with us and those who aren’t already at Art Smith will come out and join us. – Principal Chris Vinning Art Smith Aviation Academy

The extra students wouldn’t be an issue explains Vinning, “we’d be at that capacity base, but it’s a good problem to have. We did some renovations last year to create some extra rooms, we think we’ll be in good shape.”