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SUSSEX - After hearing from two delegations concerning recent education decisions which could have a significant impact on local students and the community, Sussex council passed motions June 23 advocating one-year moratoriums on those changes .

The motions pertained to Education Minister Kelly Lamrock's March decision to phase out early French immersion, and an early June directive issued by the Anglophone and Francophone Superintendents Association imposing restrictions on when and where extracurricular sports activities could be held.

"It appears these decisions have been made without a proper degree of consultation with the people with the strongest interest," said Deputy Mayor Marc Thorne after hearing from both parties.

"It shows you need to take the time to talk to the people this is going to affect. All this needs to be played out in the public forum before decisions take effect."

Penobsquis parent Lila Johnson of Canadian Parents for French appeared before council on the French immersion issue and Dairy Town Classic president Gale Jeffrey appeared on the sports issue.

Johnson presented a letter from Jane Keith, executive director of the New Brunswick branch of CPF, outlining the advocacy group's position that the program's cancellation was based on erroneous statistics.

The letter indicated Sussex benefits from its growing bilingual workforce in recruitment and retainment of employees for federal and provincial government positions, the health sector, various municipal services and private sector businesses.

Along with Keith, who also attended the meeting, Johnson wanted council members to contribute their "individual and collective voices" on the matter.

Councillor Gary Fulton came through with a motion, seconded by councillor Tim Wilson and unanimously approved around the table, that council write to Lamrock and Premier Shawn Graham advising a one-year moratorium be imposed on the early French immersion decision to allow proper consultation with experts as well as the public.

Jeffrey, who handed out letters, e-mails, newspaper articles and a copy of the June Directive from Superintendents, told council it's not just basketball and the 22-year DTC tradition in Sussex he's concerned about.

"We're fighting for sports in school," he said.

The directive, presented last month to the New Brunswick Interscholastic Athletic Association, indicated extracurricular activities would have to be held outside school hours and travelling to school activities during school hours would be subject to analysis before approval by the principal.

A third article of the directive, however, specifically impacts tournaments such as the Dairy Town Classic. It limits attendance at competitions beyond a two-hour return drive to one game per week on a weeknight, and restricts travel time to any competition to a maximum of four hours return.

"It's an overreaction to what happened in Bathurst," Jeffrey said, referring to a Jan. 12 accident in which several members of Bathurst High School's basketball team and the coach's wife were killed while returning home from a Moncton game in a van in bad road conditions.

"You have to put it into perspective," he said. "It was an accident."

If the policy isn't changed, he explained, Sussex Regional High School students won't be allowed to miss school time and will be unable to attend high class tournaments around the Maritimes. He pointed out these athletes are often high academic achievers and said it was unfair to remove something so valued from students already at the top of the class.

He noted sports, not music, drama or art, appeared to be singled out for the restrictive policies. Simply removing the offending policy from School District 6 wouldn't be sufficient, he said, as teams wouldn't come from out of the province to play only one area. He advocated changing the policy province-wide to give all teams a fair chance.

On this issue, Fulton again passed a motion, seconded by Wilson, that council write to suggest a one-year moratorium. Council passed the motion to delay the implementation of the June directive to obtain a thorough consultation with the organizations the changes would impact.