French immersion programs at the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board are expanding.
French immersion is being offered at St.Joseph's Catholic Elementary School in River Canard, and at St. Andre Catholic Elementary School in Tecumseh.
Board spokesman Stephen Fields says the board sought input before deciding which schools would offer the program, and "the Tecumseh area came in resoundingly clear as a logical choice to launch a program like this."
"At St.Andre, we had projected we were going to have about 60 students there, and we've already exceeded that," says Fields. "We're already at about 76 students."
He believes French immersion is growing in popularity because parents are seeing the benefits having a bilingual education can have for their children's future job prospects.
"Being able to speak both of Canada's official languages is really going to carry them a long way," says Fields. "I think the nice thing about French immersion, especially for a lot of parents (for whom) French is not their first language, (is that) there's a little bit more of a comfort level there. All the correspondence to the homes is all going to be done in English."