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That decision came after a 4-1 vote in favour of the change at Monday night's school board meeting. New trustee Mary Lou Cherwaty and trustee Keith Scott were absent.
About 30 parents and teachers attended the meeting, which lasted mere minutes.
Many parents stood up in frustration after the meeting, demanding to know more about how the decision came about with what they felt to be inadequate public consultation.
Terry Brookes, a school board trustee, voted against the decision.
"The public has been ill-informed about what is going on," Brookes said.
"Parents are very emotional about their children and they are planning several years ahead. They could have some valuable input into this process," he said.
"There are some good ideas in the French review, but it is backwards governance."
Because the trend across Canada is to implement early immersion, Brookes said they have to keep up in order to provide all the good materials.
Chair Reanna Erasmus said the board believes there is "a market out there" for early immersion.
"There are a lot of parents who would like to have their children in an early immersion program rather than wait until the middle immersion," Erasmus said.
Currently, the district offers French immersion starting in Grade 4. Early immersion programming would begin in kindergarten.
"We feel we are meeting the needs of those parents," Erasmus said.
Research done by Dr. Wally Lazaruk of Evaluation Plus indicated the city could have two early immersion programs because of the volume of clients, Erasmus said.
Lazaruk was hired by the district to complete a review of French programs in Yk No. 1 in the fall of 2004.
Many resources available to school districts for French programming are now focused toward kindergarten French immersion, Erasmus said.
She acknowledged that many of the distraught parents thought Sissons was going to be changed into a one-track school.
"But we're not going to do that. We're still going to have the English program, but we also will have early immersion," Erasmus said.
The one-track system will be phased in over time, she added.
"The children who are attending there now stay there until they go on to their Grade 7 or 8," she said of the process.
The immersion program beginning in September will include Grade 1 students if there are enough, she said.
One parent, Ken Huss, said he was relieved to hear that if his child enters kindergarten in the fall, that child is guaranteed a spot in the English program until Grade 5.
"That was a bit comforting. It was nice to see that finally the board is actually listening to some of the feedback from the parents and heeding a severe warning about how the process has been handled so far," Huss said.
Parents Bud and Diane Weaver felt the board was "making too quick a decision on a very important subject."
"They should have held off another year," they said.
Megan Holsapple has a child about to enter kindergarten, possibly at J.H. Sissons.
"I think French immersion is a wonderful thing. I think destroying a community school is a terrible thing," Holsapple said.
"I think it would be destroyed if it was a single-track school. One of the wonderful things that Yk 1 has been doing is having really good community schools, like Sissons."
She said it was difficult to get information from the board, which made it difficult to know what the future brings.
"They've said it is not going single track this year, but who knows for next year," Holsapple said.
The motion passed just in time for the beginning of kindergarten registration for Yk No. 1 parents: Feb. 22 at Mildred Hall school and continuing Feb. 24 at Range Lake North school.
Erasmus had previously admitted that the board was pushing the motion for early immersion forward in order to meet the kindergarten registration dates.
