The French program has declined from 147 students to 115 students over the last year, according to statistics provided by Assistant Principal Jonathan Mach said. The retirement of former French teacher Joanne Mollot last year left Lisa Topping as the only French teacher still at the high school, he added.
There are now only five total French classes left—three French 1 sections, and one section of French 2, and one section of French 3, Topping said. She hopes to regrow the French program back up to nine to ten periods of French including an AP French but she will need the help of another teacher, Topping added.
“We used to have it (AP French) almost every year,” Topping said. “We would only get one (AP class) and that was pretty good for us, considering all the (regular) Spanish classes, like eight (spanish) teachers, and I don’t know how many level ones, and they only had one (AP class).”
While it may appear to be a chicken and egg problem between student enrollment and the number of teachers, ultimately there needs to be student interest before the number of sections can be determined, Mach said.
“To grow a program, I wouldn’t hire just a teacher and hope that the program grows because a teacher costs a lot of money,” Mach said. “And if I don’t know that I have those kids to be able to put in those classes, then how do I know (whether to hire a teacher)?”
The reality for elective programs is that they do have to compete with each other, whether it is a similar program like another language or another elective altogether, Mach said.
“If you want to grow the program, you’re growing from the same number of kids,” Mach said. “It’s not like we’re getting more kids, and they (elective programs) have to compete with art, or they have to compete with the academy, or they have to compete with social (sciences).”
When it comes to world language classes, there tends to be a large drop-off in enrollment after the first few levels, and very few students actually make it all the way through to the highest level, Mach said. All the world languages have similar drop-off rates between levels, Mach added.
“There’s an 80 plus retention rate for Spanish from (level) one to two,” Mach said. “Most colleges don’t ask for more than (two years of language credits), so then there’s about 40-50 percent retention rate (from level two to level three).”
Sophomore Risha Jain doesn’t think that French is a dying language and still believes that there is a lot of interest for French, she said. Jain chose French because of what the language symbolized for her, she added.
“I picked the language because I think it’s more elegant,” Jain said. “I know Spanish is more popular, but I like French because it is elegant. I like the culture, and I think French is beautiful; the architecture is nice. Their food is also really pretty – like the way they make things, it’s fancy.”
Topping also agrees that French isn’t a dying language and that it continues to remain important and relevant, she said.
“It’s the second language of the Olympics, of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), of the UN (United Nations), and people don’t always see that,” Topping said. “Learning French helps learn our own language of English because we have like one-third of the words in English are stolen from French.”
Topping implored the school district to support the French program at the high school and in the district as she believes that a healthy program is beneficial for everyone, she said.
“To our district, I would say: don’t you think French, having a French program that goes all the way to AP – wouldn’t that be an asset to our community and that it would look good?” Topping said.