Foothills School Division could be saying "bonjour" to a potential partnership with a school in France.

FSD is looking into future educational collaborations with Academie de Nancy-Metz which is located in the north-eastern part of France.

The division isn't the first in the province to look into partnerships of this kind as Calgary, Edmonton, and Red Deer schools are already taking part in similar initiatives in France with other regions.

Lesley Doell, French immersion facilitator and instructional coach for FSD, says the partnership would see students do a bit of travelling.

"What Foothills School Division is looking into is student exchanges for approximately one month for our Grade 10 and 11 French immersion students," she says. "The idea is students in France would come here for one month and then our students would go over there."

As time goes on the program could have potential to open up to all students and not just those who are in French immersion or French as a Second Language programs.

Doell adds she'd like to see exchanges include teachers.

"Another project we'd be looking at is job shadowing where we'd send a few teachers over for a couple weeks so they could observe and learn best practices and then those teachers come over here and see what we do in Canada."

Skype sessions would also take place allowing students and staff between Nancy-Metz and FSD to communicate during class times.

Doell says the partnership would benefit both parties.

"Principles and the administrative team can share best practices of the administration aspects of the schools. It definitely creates that open mind and cross cultural understanding where we can learn from each other what works best as far as learning today."

The partnership is being coordinated in part with the French Embassy in Ottawa.

Questions, comments, or story ideas? Email us at news@okotoksonline.com