Against the elimination of French in BHS middle schools

May 1, 2008-At the BHS Board meeting tonight, the proposal to keep French in all three middle schools was rejected. Apparently, this was decided two years ago and only recently released to the public. We thank you for your support and commend your strength. This was a tough fight, and there was really nothing that we could do about it--the Board was already biased. The petition is now closed to new signatures. -Chloe Logan and Charles Zhou

To:  Bloomfield Hills Schools Board of Education

The Bloomfield Hills School District (BHSD) is planning to eliminate the French programs at Bloomfield Hills Middle School and East Hills Middle School, replacing French with German and Mandarin Chinese. West Hills Middle School keeps its French program. It is unclear whether this is to begin in the upcoming school year (2008-2009), or the 2009-2010 school year.

Superintendent Dr. Steve Gaynor says that this idea has not even been officially proposed yet. However, something must be done to ensure that French remains in the curriculum of all middle schools in the BHSD.

While the addition of new world languages to the middle school curriculum would certainly be a positive thing, the elimination of two French programs is not. French is still an important world language. Formerly the language of diplomacy, it now has the largest number of secondary speakers in the world (190 million), is an important language in the world economy and an official language of many international organizations, is the second most commonly used language on the Internet, and helps with learning other Romance languages and English skills.

If this new system is implemented, there would be many problems. It would be impossible to coordinate shuttles with the different schedules among the three schools. In addition, much class time would be lost to transportation. As of now, the district is not even sure if they would provide shuttles for the students.

We, the undersigned, oppose this change and strongly recommend that the Bloomfield Hills Schools Board of Education and others involved reconsider their proposal to ensure that the French programs remain intact at all three middle schools.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Against the elimination of French in BHS middle schools Petition to Bloomfield Hills Schools Board of Education was created by and written by Charles Zhou (charleszhou1@gmail.com).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.