A representative of English school boards tried yesterday to smooth over a dispute involving 100 perfectly good computer keyboards that were replaced to comply with Quebec's language law.
"We think everybody should just take a pill," said David Birnbaum, executive director of the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA).
On Monday, CBC reported that the Riverside School Board was spending $5,000 to replace English keyboards in its office with French ones. The board is also putting stickers on 50 laptops to hide English terms like "Shift" and "Delete."
The South Shore board, which stretches from Ste. Catherine to Sorel-Tracy, ordered the new keyboards to meet francization requirements under Bill 101.
"It's true we made the request," said Martin Bergeron, spokesperson for the Office quebecois de la langue francaise, which has been working with the Riverside board to ensure its operations are in compliance with the language charter.
So far, only three of Quebec's nine English school boards have obtained francization certificates allowing them to operate in English as well as French, Bergeron said. They are the Commission scolaire du littoral on the Lower North Shore; the Eastern Shores School Board in the Gaspe; and the New Frontiers School Board in the Chateauguay Valley.
The six others are in the process of meeting the requirements.
Birnbaum said he had no problem with the keyboard purchase even though he insisted that conforming to the language law should not come at the expense of schools.
"We make sure the priority is in the classroom," he said.
But Marcus Tabachnick, chairmanof theLesterB. Pearson School Board, was critical of the Office's requirement.
"It's just a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money and it takes money out of a school board," Tabachnick said.
"Everybody is crying about the amount of funds and services available and here a school board is going to have to take money out of services to students," he added.
Tabachnick said the francization program has not caused any major problems for the Pearson board so far.
"We have about 8,000-plus computers. We've been purchasing bilingual keyboards for a long time and all of our software is bilingual so it's never been an issue," he said.
At the English Montreal School Board, Director General Robert Stocker said the commission is in discussions with the Office over measures it needs to implement.
"We intend to comply with the provisions of the law and are in the process of discussing with the OLF the most reasonable measures and timelines that the EMSB can take to be in full compliance," Stocker said in a statement.
The Office usually allows organizations it is working with to replace equipment as it wears out, to minimize costs, Bergeron said.
The Riverside board said the discarded keyboards will be put to use in classrooms.
"The road to meeting the requirements (of the Office) is sometimes a little bumpy," Birnbaum said. "But the QESBA's experience is the Office has a job to do and is generally working with us in a collaborative fashion," he added.
Bill 101 requires all companies and organizations of 50 or more employees -including school boards -to obtain a certificate of francization.
"The fact that it is an English school board has nothing to do with it," Bergeron said. "In Quebec, the language of work is French."
mascot@montrealgazette.com
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The putting stickers over SHIFT and DELETE? Wow. These folks are serious. I'm quite certain this blog does not need to translated since it's just a blog about an American family and we don't always follow the rules. In the event that the Language Police should ever have issues....it's simple. Copy and Paste everything into Google Translate and voilà Seriously. Plus, there are keyboard short cuts to make all those fancy-looking letters and Francinization isn't even a real word. However, I was looking in an English dictionary.
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