Parents deplore the upcoming demolition of a commercial building on L’Île-des-Sœurs in Montreal housing several primary school classes, while the third school project had been put on hold a few days earlier by Quebec.
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“Where is my son going to go? asks Amélie Godbout. Our children were placed in this building because there was no room elsewhere. »
The building, which houses commercial premises, but also nearly 200 students from the Marguerite primary school, will be “demolished to build a 239-room hotel”, can we read on the project of the Lachance Immobilier group, submitted to the Verdun Borough Council this week.
“What we deplore above all is the lack of communication, explains Mourad Bendjennet, father of an 11-year-old girl. No alternative solution to relocate the children was offered to us by the Center de services scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys (CSSMB). »
The parents learned the news by reading the agenda of the last borough council, which planned to adopt the resolution allowing the building to be demolished. The vote was eventually pushed back to a later date.
Contacted by The newspaperthe CSSMB was unable to say whether the students will be relocated to another location.
Temporary solution
In 2019, the CSSMB decided to create an annex in these commercial premises, to house the 5th and 6th year pupils of the already overcrowded Marguerite primary school.
“It was a temporary solution while waiting for the third school, which will not happen in the end”, ironically Amélie Godbout.
A project for a third primary school on L’Île-des-Sœurs, planned and budgeted for years, had indeed been “paused” by the CSSMB in October, on the grounds of a “significant drop in the number of pupils », arousing the incomprehension of the parents.
“At the beginning, we were reluctant to put our children in office towers, without any real playground and surrounded by construction sites, says Amélie Godbout. But in the end, it’s better than no school at all. »