Dozens of parents and students gathered on Friday in front of the Collège Sainte-Marcelline, in the Montreal borough of Ahuntsic-Cartierville, to protest against the refusal, by the congregation of sisters who own the buildings, of the offer of funding to save the Villa Sainte-Marcelline that a parents’ committee had proposed to him.
“We are mobilizing to obtain answers, launches Catherine Lafontaine, the mother of two children aged 3e and 5e primary grade attending school. It is unbearable for parents and teachers not to know how long their school will remain open”.
La Villa Sainte-Marceline is a French private school in Westmount founded in 1959. It welcomes hundreds of girls from kindergarten to 5e high school year. Last October, the congregation of the Sisters of Sainte-Marcelline took the school’s board of directors by surprise by announcing that it did not intend to renew the school’s lease, citing the dilapidated state of the buildings.
Following an assessment by engineering and architectural firms, the sisters indicated, last October, that “approximately 12 to 16 million dollars must be invested to ensure the conformity and modernity of the buildings” .
The sisters’ lawyer then summoned the school organization to leave the premises for the 1er July 2023. The news sent shockwaves.
Avoid permanent closure
Since then, the congregation has changed its mind. The lease has been extended until the end of the 2023-2024 school year, in order to allow management to continue its activities. The sisters have also begun discussions with the board of directors to find a long-term solution that would avoid a permanent closure of the school.
The “future committee”, made up of a group of parents concerned about the future of the establishment, was also formed. “In just a few weeks, last month, we accumulated $2.8 million to extend the lease until 2026, and an additional $2 million for the following years,” says Hubert Lacroix, chairman of the committee.
Once the lease was extended until 2026, the group of parents would then have raised enough funds to buy the building permanently and would have founded a non-profit organization to ensure its maintenance.
In internal documents that The duty was able to consult, we learn that the congregation refused the strategy proposed by the parents, demanding instead a sale of the building at 12 million dollars, a signing of the deed of sale no later than June 30, 2024 and a deposit of $1 million to accompany the promise to purchase.
“We have nevertheless demonstrated that we were able to raise funds quickly, maintains Mr. Lacroix. The parents would have taken full financial responsibility for the project. The congregation would have had nothing to pay”.
Further details will follow.