For lack of space, the students of a high school in Laval take physical education classes in a chapel. However, despite requests from the school service center and the lack of space, Quebec is slow to finance new sports facilities at Mont-de-La Salle high school.
It is a magnificent setting, but unusual for physical education classes. With its stained glass windows and its chandeliers to protect, its columns on which you must avoid rushing, the chapel of the Mont-de-La Salle secondary school is hardly suitable for gymnastics. We don’t play with balls.
Yet it is one of the places where some 2,000 students from Laval high school have physical education classes.
Anne-Marie Morel’s daughter has been attending this school since September. “I was in shock when I saw the facilities available for young people,” says Mme Morel. Her own daughter, she says, is not keen on sports, but under such conditions, who would become? she asks.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Anne-Marie Morel, mother of a student at Mont-de-La Salle high school
She describes gymnasiums smaller than in some elementary schools. For lack of space, “even in the extracurricular, we must limit the number of evenings where young people can come”, continues Mme Morel, who is one of the instigators of a petition to ask Quebec to finance new sports facilities for this school.
There was a soccer field behind the school, but it has been cut in half in recent years when modular classrooms have been installed. As a result, at lunchtime, the young people sometimes walk to another field.
“We are in a disadvantaged neighborhood. There have been a lot of incidents of gun violence this year in Laval, and Laval-des-Rapides is a red light district. What we want is for our young people to stay safe at school, ”said Liberal MP for that riding, Saul Polo.
He sponsored a petition asking Quebec to prioritize the Mont-de-La Salle school sports complex project.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Saul Polo, Liberal MP for Laval-des-Rapides, with students from Mont-de-La Salle high school
“The poor teacher, he was doing the best he could”
Kenee Ochoa-Sully, Adam Checroune, Quincy Désy as well as Benoit and Lenny Kenny got out of bed on a Saturday morning to meet Press in front of their high school.
“It shows how much they take it to heart,” laughs Anne-Marie Morel. Their sport is basketball. The young people are unanimous: they would like to do it more than once a week, in better facilities.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Kenee Ochoa-Sully, Adam Checroune, Quincy Désy, Benoit and Lenny Kenny
Student in 4e High school, Adam Checroune reports that a few years ago, he took part of his physical education classes in the cafeteria.
“We did table tennis for 10 lessons. The poor teacher, he was doing the best he could with what he had. He tried to make us play tennis, but we almost broke a window, ”recalls the student.
The Laval School Services Center (CSSDL) has submitted two requests in Quebec to expand the Josée-Faucher Sports Center, which is adjacent to the school. They were not retained. The 33 million requested “would allow an extension of 4400 m2, including the addition of 3 sports platforms ”, indicates the CSSDL.
The Ministry of Education explains that “globally”, infrastructure projects for schools “greatly exceed the funding capacity”.
For its part, the CSSDL recalls that investments have been made in recent years to renovate the Josée-Faucher Sports Center at Mont-de-La Salle school.
“With its sports complex which offers gymnasiums and a swimming pool in particular, as well as its immense land which offers several possibilities, the Mont-de-La Salle school is able to offer a very interesting offer for the students”, underlines by email the Director General of the CSSDL, Yves Michel Volcy.
A century-old school
The Mont-de-La Salle school was built in 1914 by the Brothers of the Christian Schools. It is, according to the school service center, one of the first reinforced concrete buildings in Canada. The maintenance deficit of the building, judged by Quebec in “very poor condition”, is 17.3 million.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, ARCHIVES THE PRESS
The facade of Mont-de-La Salle high school
A new high school will soon see the light of day in Laval, recalls the CSSDL. It will be built in the Pont-Viau / Laval-des-Rapides sector and should welcome its first students in 2023.
What a lot of parents mention is that it will create two classes of young people. The favored, who will go to the new school, and the forgotten, at Mont-de-La Salle.
Saul Polo, Liberal MP
By then, parents are already making comparisons with schools visited for sports competitions. This is the case with Elza Sully, who describes herself as a “fighting parent”.
“The other day, we went to Longueuil, we saw what had been done in a school… why can’t we offer that to Laval-des-Rapides? It’s not normal, ”she said.