Breaks and cracks forced the preventive evacuation of 2,000 students from Félix-Leclerc high school in Repentigny on Tuesday morning. In May 2022, the Department of Education’s most recent school dilapidation report gave it a “D” rating (on an A to E scale), with an asset maintenance deficit of $8.5 million.
Classes have been suspended all day and will be on Wednesday too, at the very least.
In the morning, the Repentigny Fire Department and experts were called to the scene, due to “signs of weakness in the structure and cracks in the concrete blocks”, explains Jean-Marc Picotte, assistant director of the Fire Department. Repentigny fires.
He adds that the cracks were ultimately more on decorative elements, but that due to the noise that was heard and previous work that had to be done, the students were evacuated to the adjoining sports complex.
In the afternoon, the Affluents school service center wrote in a press release that the problem would come from a column “which would have collapsed by approximately one centimeter and which would have caused the cracks which were observed on certain walls of the school “.
Despite the concern aroused by this exceptional situation, the experts confirm that the state of the building is safe, that it does not present any risk and that the students and staff could return to school tomorrow in complete safety.
Excerpt from the press release from the Affluents school service center
However, “in view of certain interventions already carried out on the school building in recent years and in order to obtain the opinion of a second external firm”, the service center has requested “an additional analysis which will allow to paint a complete picture of the situation.
Jean-Louis Bray, president of the education union in the Moulins region, said he was surprised to learn that it was the Félix-Leclerc school that was at fault. “We have quite a few older ones”, he spontaneously launched.
Sébastien Pepin and his spouse Anne-Marie Boivin, they were not surprised by the news and even less that structural problems were mentioned.
In the 1990s, they both attended this school which had just been built “in the middle of a cornfield”, recalls Ms.me Bovine.
Two or three times a year, they recall, the school closed for several days in a row because the field, like the school, was flooded.
Old or insufficiently repaired schools
The Félix-Leclerc school is not that old. It was built in 1992, but it already has a D rating.
In 2019, the Auditor General wrote that the asset maintenance deficit for school buildings stood at nearly $4.5 billion. “This deficit is the second largest among government infrastructures, after that of the road network. »
One of the problems targeted by the Auditor General is that the Ministère de l’Éducation “does not formulate requirements with regard to the sums devoted to building maintenance and it does not ask the school boards to return accounts about it”.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The Auditor General of Quebec, Guylaine Leclerc
Lack of investment can affect the lifespan of building components and require asset maintenance work to be carried out early.
Guylaine Leclerc, Auditor General of Quebec, in 2019
Many students in Quebec pay the price for inadequate schools. Two weeks before the start of the 2020 school year, part of the Sophie-Barat school in Montreal was condemned because structural problems made it dangerous (mold having been the big concern during the 2022 school year).
At the Montreal school service center, between 2021 and 2024, students from around fifteen schools – mainly primary – must be moved, as so many others have been in recent years, particularly in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
In June 2021, the former Minister of Education Jean-François Roberge admitted that the state of school buildings in the province is “a bit embarrassing”, 54% of the buildings of all school boards being considered to be in poor or very poor condition, according to the government condition index.
Bernard Drainville, Minister of Education, was not available for an interview, said his cabinet, which indicates that “this is a worrying situation that we are monitoring closely”.