There will be more 'bonjour'" heard at a south Windsor Catholic high school.
A new French Immersion program is being added to Holy Names High School.
The board is developing French immersion courses depending on enrolment numbers and recruiting qualified teachers to deliver the program.
"It has been something that we knew was going to be in the works for some time back when Christ the King, one of our feeder schools, introduced French Immersion to their school," says Principal Pat Hickson. "It was promised that we would start a French Immersion program here in 2020 and we are sticking to our guns."
It will be launched in September 2020.
Hickson says it will add 10 courses in the French Immersion program over the course the four years.
"It will just add to the culture first of all," says Hickson. "It will increase the visibility of our second language that we have here. With French Immersion growing all over the place, it is so important to have at least that second language in terms of communication, occupation possibilities."
Hickson says there will not be any impact on the current students at Holy Names because the French Immersion program will start in Grade 9 in September in 2020 and build.
The school currently has 1218 students.
There are also French Immersion programs at Cardinal Carter, St. Joseph's, St. Anne and Villanova.
The French Immersion Program will be for students in the elementary French Immersion Program or a French school right now.
Board Director Terry Lyons says adding the program now makes sense because the first cohort of French Immersion students from Christ the King Catholic elementary school will graduate from Grade 8 in 2021.