École publique Gabrielle-Roy is an elementary, junior and senior high school in the Strathearn community of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It provides public francophone education to students from Kindergarten to grade 12. École Enfantine is a preschool program located within the school for children eligible for francophone education aged 3 and 4 years old. This playschool is operated by a parent committee and Fédération des Parents Francophones de l'Alberta. The school also houses a daycare and before and after-school care program called Centre d'expérience préscolaire et parascolaire.
School history
École publique Gabrielle-Roy opened in 1997 with 25 students. It operated in a series of different northside locations, then in 2006 it moved to its present site. In 2006-2007, enrolment increased by 55%. On September 30, 2012, the school had 343 K-12 students. The school is named after the famous French-Canadian novelist and teacher Gabrielle Roy. She was born in Saint Boniface, Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1909 and is the author several internationally acclaimed novels, namely The Tin Flute that won the 1947 Governor General's Awards for fiction as well as the Royal Society of Canada's Lorne Pierce Medal.
Francophone schools
According to Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, parents whose first language is French have a constitutional right to have their child educated in French where there are enough students to warrant it. They also have the right to govern these schools. There are four francophone school authorities operating 34 schools in Alberta. The educational needs of francophone students, of their families and their communities, the expected outcomes for francophone education and the conditions that must be met to ensure these outcomes are achieved, are found in the Alberta Education's document Affirming Francophone Education.
Academic program
Alberta Education develops the Program of Studies in French for Kindergarten to Grade 12 students in Francophone programs. All courses, except for English language arts beginning in grade 3, are offered entirely in French.
