By Marie-Eve Gauthier, member of the new parents' association of Smithers' Francophone school

Francophone parents in Smithers, a small town in northern B.C., experienced an emotional, almost magical moment on February 23, 2019, when the Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique (CSF) approved their application to open a Francophone school there.

After all the research, work, meetings, and networking done by these parents, the Francophone community of Smithers was about to begin a new page in its history.

It all started in 2017, when several Francophone families were unable to enrol their children in the French immersion program offered by the local English-language school board because of a lack of available spaces.   It should be said that these families didn’t know that minority language parents have the right to have their children educated in their language, where numbers warrant.

However, their research led them to find out about the CSF, which is the provincial school board that manages public Francophone schools in regions of British Columbia where there are sufficient numbers for this. This new awareness that a Francophone school was indeed a possibility motivated the parents to apply to set one up in their community.

The first step was to inform the rest of the local Francophone community. After the community expressed its support for such a project, the preparation of the application for a new school could begin.

Among other things, this included specifying the number of school-aged children living in Smithers at the time of the application who had at least one parent meeting the eligibility criteria, as well as providing a forecast of those numbers for the following five years. Much of the work has consisted of collecting this data, as well as ensuring the continued engagement of Francophone families in the community.

Although the first application submitted in 2018 was not accepted, the parents did not give up. Many people came together to make a second application -- because from the moment that this idea of a Francophone school was conceived, all we could do was continue the efforts towards its achievement!

After the CSF Board of Trustees accepted the second application last February, a number of important steps remained to be taken, including finding a location for the school.

The fact that several available buildings in Smithers would be a good fit for a school made the process easier, allowing the school to open its doors in September 2019.

Both parents and students were happy and excited to start the new school year in their very own school! It's only the beginning for the Francophone school in Smithers, and the parents of this community are very proud to be be actively involved in its development.

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*To learn more about the right to Francophone education in linguistic minority communities, visit the website of la Fédération des parents francophones.