HAY RIVER
The time has come for parents to start enrolling their children in schools for next September, but some face more obstacles to getting their kids into the school of their choosing than others.

Ecole Boreale principal Stephane Millette stands with a pile of applications from parents of small children seeking a ministerial exemption to allow them to enroll in the French school. Parents are required to provide historical documentation of a connection to French ancestry. - Sarah Ladik/NNSL photo

As a result of a ministerial directive in 2010, parents with children who are not mother-tongue French or have parents who were educated in French, but still have a claim to Francophone heritage, must apply directly to the minister of Education, Culture and Employment for an exemption and the right to attend Ecole Boreale.

“It puts the families and the school in a tough spot,” said principal Stephane Millette. “You have to prove French heritage with documents and that can be really difficult. I believe it's contributing to the tension and the mistrust.”

Last week, Millette held an information session for parents with children seeking admission to the school who would need an exemption. About 10 parents attended, but he said the pool of people who would like to send their kids to Ecole Boreale is probably larger. Out of 11 applications to the minister since the directive came into effect, only two have been accepted.

“Informing parents of the situation is a big thing,” he said. “With the ongoing court case, no one is sure where they stand.”

An ongoing legal battle between the Commission scolaire francophone and the GNWT saw its latest instalment in late March in the NWT Court of Appeal. Judgement was reserved on whether the GNWT-owed French schools in Yellowknife and Hay River greater and more specialized teaching spaces – including gyms – as well as the school board's power to admit students who do not clearly fall within the first subsection of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Section 23 that guarantees instruction in minority languages in the country, either French or English, depending on the jurisdiction.

Millette agrees with the school board's lawyer Roger LePage that the case will probably go to the Supreme Court of Canada. Minority language school boards across the country (except the NWT and Yukon) have the right to decide who attends their schools and a decision in the NWT would have impacts in other territories and provinces.

“The school board admissions policy has not been well defined,” Millette said, adding that the lack of strict direction and definitions has caused confusion that is now contributing to discussions about who has the right to receive instruction in French in the community.

But as complex and nationally significant the litigation may be, the effects are also being felt closer to home.

Nancy Stanley, mother of three children aged four, two and one, said she wants them to go to French school and has submitted an application to the minister for an exemption.

“It's stressful,” she said. “We're trying to come up with as much legal reasoning as possible, but sometimes physical documents don't exist or are hard to find.”

Included in many application packages are letters written by grandparents and great-grandparents in French, school report cards showing some French-language instruction, as well as copies of workbooks the children completed in French before even attending school. As for the historical documents, Stanley said she and her family have to rely on relatives to have kept things to some extent, and have put out a call to everyone on her husband's side of the family from whence the French heritage flows, for any evidence of a francophone past.

“I can write down his mom's story,” she said. “But how do I prove it?”