English eligibility certificate

Eligibility flap keeps aspiring St. Pat’s hockey player off ice

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / September 10, 2024 / Education, English eligibility certificate, Ruby Pratka

Eligibility flap keeps aspiring St. Pat’s hockey player off ice

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Hockey players are used to getting slammed into the boards, but for Jordan Soulard-Clarke, 11, the biggest barrier to realizing his hockey dreams has arisen before he ever stepped on the ice.

Soulard-Clarke, who lives in Donnacona, dreamed of being part of the St. Patrick’s High School Fighting Irish hockey program and had been accepted to the school’s U13 team for Secondary 1 and 2 students. The family toured the school, and Soulard-Clarke met the head of the hockey program, Danick Powers.

“My son even had his class schedule and his bus plan,” said Soulard-Clarke’s father, Jason Clarke, a former professional hockey player and coach. “He’s a very nervous boy, and he felt so comfortable knowing he had his class [schedule], his locker and his teammates.”

All of those plans fell apart when the school contacted Clarke and let him know the Ministry of Education and Higher Learning (MEES) had not issued his son, who attended a local French-language primary school, a certificate of eligibility for English instruction.

Quebec-born students are normally considered eligible for English instruction if they have a parent or sibling who completed the majority of their primary school education in English in Canada (for parents who grew up in Ontario, the requirement is five years of primary school education). Jason Clarke said he fit that requirement, having attended English-language public schools in and around Cobourg, Ont., throughout primary and secondary school. However, two of the elementary schools Clarke attended, Dr. L.B. Powers Public School in Port Hope, Ont. and Grant Sine Public School in Cobourg, have since closed, the former in 2004 and the latter in 2014. Clarke said he has been told by the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board (KPRDSB) that records showing who attended the school are no longer available. (The QCT was unable to contact the KPRDSB before press time, but local media articles confirm the closure of the two schools.)

Clarke said he supplied his birth certificate and “all the English documentation we could find” including school pictures from both schools and a grade school ID card from Burnham Street Public School showing he had previously attended L.B. Powers. It didn’t help.

MEES spokesperson Bryan St-Louis said applicants for an English eligibility certificate must provide a report card, an attestation or ministry forms filled out by the parent or sibling’s educational “institution or organization” showing that the majority of their primary education was completed in English. The MEES would not comment on Soulard-Clarke’s specific case due to privacy concerns.

“We keep being told my son’s file is incomplete, but [the ministry is] waiting for documentation that doesn’t exist,” Clarke said.

Furthermore, the fact that the file remains open means that Clarke can’t go through the usual MEES appeal process or submit a new application on the basis that Soulard-Clarke, who speaks mostly English at home and struggles with reading and writing in French, should qualify for an exemption based on his learning difficulties or on “humanitarian or family considerations.”

Soulard-Clarke missed three days of school as the family waited for a favourable deci- sion. Finally, against his will and theirs, his parents sent him to École secondaire de Donnacona, where he has few friends and fewer opportunities to play hockey. “If he was at St. Pat’s, he would play hockey every day, but now he only plays once a week. He’s not himself – when a kid has his heart set on something and the day before, it’s taken away from him, you know how that feels,” Clarke said.

No one from St. Patrick’s High School or the Central Québec School Board was available to discuss the situation at press time.

Clarke told the QCT he is considering taking legal action. “It’s a form of discrimination,” he said. “St. Pat’s has done everything they are supposed to, but the ministry has decided to make an example of my son. They should have let him go to school [at his chosen school] and say ‘We’re missing some documents, we’ll figure it out later, but we shouldn’t deny him the chance to go to school and play hockey.’ They need to be held accountable.”

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Heritage College says Bill 96 unfair to students

Local Journalism Initiative / The Low Down / September 5, 2024 / Bill 96, English eligibility certificate, Heritage College, Outaouais, Trevor Greenway

By Trevor Greenway

editor@lowdownonline.com

Some Heritage College students will attend school on a weekend this year to prepare for Quebec’s French-language exit exam, a new requirement for those who don’t hold an English eligibility certificate.

Heritage College’s academic dean Lisa Peldjak said the school is working on a mock exam for this October, where all non-certificate holders show up on a Saturday to measure themselves against the provincial standard in French. Those who struggle in the exam will have time to improve before the actual exam next spring.

“This is going to be a real snapshot of what the French exit exam will look like,” said Peldjak. “They’re going to be here all day. It’s mandatory for the students to attend. And it’ll be worth grades. But they’re going to grade it like the French exit [exam] to give the students a taste of what the exam will be like.”

But Heritage’s director-general Terry Kharyati said he has no idea how many of these students will attend this mock exam in October, as the prospect of non-French speakers taking the same exit exam as their francophone counterparts has been a major deterrent for prospective students.

“All students have the opportunity to feel welcome, first, and the accessibility to what is a great education,” said Kharyati. “But for some who’ve never taken French, it’s ominous. We see that already from students who are coming here from Ontario or who are from the Glebe High School [Ottawa]. If they come here, they’re considered non-anglo because they don’t have their English eligibility rights.”

“We’re recruiting students for basketball. We have students coming over from Ridgemont High School [in Ottawa],” added Kharyati. “But it’s getting more difficult to recruit from Ottawa schools.”

Part of the problem with the English eligibility certificates is that the Ministry of Education will only give them out to students who are currently enrolled in English high schools in Quebec. Those who have already graduated and request a certificate after they’ve graduated are being denied. Those who attend CEGEPs without the certificate will be required to write the province’s three-hour French exit exam, whereas those who hold the certificate will take an English exam.

The new CEGEP rules are part of the CAQ government’s implementation of Bill 96 – the province’s overhaul of the Charter of the French Language, which requires all non-English certificate holders to take the French exam. Bill 96 became Law 14 after it was passed in 2022, affecting how the charter applies to English CEGEPs in the province. Students who do hold English certificates will also have to take three additional French-language courses or three core courses in French, creating a two-tiered system for students.

Peldjak explained that the college is using incoming high school grades in French, as well as a college assessment, to determine whether or not a student is placed in the advanced French stream. The advanced stream will allow students to take two French as a second language (FSL) courses, two complementary courses in French and one program-specific course in French. Non-advanced stream students will take a total of five FSL courses within their two years at the college.

“Depending on the student and their level of French, they’re not all coming in being treated fairly or equally,” she said.

Peldjak noted that students who are required to take the five FSL courses don’t have the option of taking complementary courses, which give them a “highlight into other interests that they might have.” These students, according to Peldjak, miss out on the entirety of other courses the college has to offer.

The college won’t know how much of a deterrent these new rules will be on the student population until final enrollment numbers are reported in mid-September.

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