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It seems too illogical to be true: Ottawa’s English public school board is proposing a policy that would cut English-language instruction out of some elementary schools – barring kids from attending those neighbourhood schools unless they’re able, and willing, to learn in French.

It is a travesty for an English-language school board to prevent small children from attending their local, walkable public school, simply because those children need or want to study in their native language: English. It shouldn’t be necessary to point out that English is one of Canada’s two official languages; the official language of Ontario; and the operating language of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board itself.

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Yet buried within the board’s blandly titled “school framework proposal” is a recommendation that would have the effect of turning some elementary public schools into French Immersion-only schools, if there are not enough children in a school’s English stream to form 1.5 classes per grade level. In these schools, all students from grades 1 to 6 would learn every subject – except for English and math – in French.