Influx of foreign students has N.B. educators seeking help

Canada-bound Syrian refugees wait at Marka Airport in Amman, Jordan, on Dec. 8, 2015. (Raad Adayleh / AP)

FREDERICTON - A lack of support, including access to full-time translators, led to what frantic staff called "communication breakdowns" and culture clashes between Syrian refugee students, classmates, and teachers at a New Brunswick high school earlier this year.

More than 2,700 pages of documents, obtained by The Rebel news outlet through access to information and reviewed by The Canadian Press, detail the concerns of overwhelmed educators as they dealt with an influx of students who didn't speak English, may have been out of school for years, observed different religious practices, and came from war-affected countries.

In some cases, teachers described the situation as "chaos" as they dealt with problems of behaviour, gender roles and bullying, and made repeated requests for translators to help address the issues.

Shawna Allen-VanderToorn, co-ordinator for English as a Second Language programs for the school district that includes Fredericton High, said they didn't know how many Syrian students to expect or which schools they'd go to, so they had to react rather than prepare.

She says once extra teachers were added, the situation was resolved.

School District Superintendent David McTimoney says another 12 full-time equivalent teaching positions will be added this fall.

Federal Immigration Minister John McCallum says there were hiccups in the effort to settle 25,000 immigrants in such a short time, but he thinks that overall it went well.

=