Citizens, elected officials and organizations accuse the Quebec Ministry of Education (MEQ) and the Center de services scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys (CSSMB) of underestimating the needs for new public schools in L’Île-des- Sisters. They are mobilizing to exert pressure following the shelving, last fall, of the project to build a school for primary and secondary students.
“It’s a very, very fragile balance,” says Daria Lebidoff, spokesperson for the Coalition for Public Schools in L’Île-des-Soeurs, and whose children attend the Marguerites primary school. “The decision of the School Services Center was very hasty. »
They were impatiently awaiting the construction of a “primary-secondary school”, included in the Quebec Infrastructure Plan (PQI) in 2019 as well as in Bill 66, which aims to accelerate infrastructure projects. “The data from last June from the MEQ, as well as those from the last school year, showed a significant drop in the number of students in this sector”, explains in writing to the Duty the CSSMB. This decrease occurred during the pandemic. The ministry tells us for its part that the results for 2022 establish that there will be a decrease of more than 200 students in elementary school within five years, and that the forecasts are relatively stable for secondary school within ten years.
This decision disappointed and perplexed various groups, elected officials and parents, who decided to form a coalition, in which also participates the member for Verdun for Quebec solidaire, Alejandra Zaga Mendez. Île-des-Soeurs has two primary schools and no secondary school. The closest is the Monseigneur-Richard secondary school in Verdun, where “there are not enough places”, we denounce.
“When the children reach secondary age, the families wonder whether they are staying or whether they are moving,” says Daria Lebidoff. The pandemic has certainly had an effect on attendance, but “we are now in a return to normality”, she explains. “We see the opposite. »
“They only take school enrollment into consideration, but not the population pool,” adds Richard Pagé, member of the Coalition, who describes the authorities’ analysis as incomplete.
For his part, he analyzed data from the Statistics Canada census and from access to information requests made to the Ministry of Education, the CSSMB and the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec. According to his calculations, 43% of young people have to travel outside the borough of Verdun to attend secondary school, which testifies to “a flagrant lack of secondary school places in this territory”.
The Coalition recalls that 3000 housing units will be built by 2027 on L’Île-des-Soeurs and that a station of the Metropolitan Express Network (REM) will come into operation. She anticipates that, within two years, there will be clearly insufficient space in the two primary schools on the island. “We are going to have trailers in school parking lots,” predicts Richard Pagé. Already, an annex had to be opened in 2019 in an office tower because of the excessive number of students at the Marguerite school. The lease expires in 2024.
For lack of places, parents are also turning to the private sector. An imposed choice, estimates the Coalition, and the bill can quickly rise for families. The latest census shows that 43% of households have a gross total income of less than $80,000 on L’Île-des-Soeurs, which would contradict the idea that this is an area where only people live. with high financial means.
Mobilization
The CSSMB indicated to the Duty that “data and analysis are coming over the next few weeks.” To exert pressure and in the hope of fueling reflection, the Coalition wrote a brief and submitted it to the CSSMB and the Minister of Education last week.
Leaflets will be distributed this week, with the aim of carrying out an awareness campaign outside schools, childcare centers and in busy places on L’Île-des-Soeurs. “We want to mobilize people and reopen the file,” says Daria Lebidoff. We will want to escalate the means of pressure a little later. »
“What we are asking is to have an open discussion with the School Service Center and that it be responsible for its decisions, as well as the Ministry of Education, she adds. We want a proper analysis, and a community project for the next fifty years.”
CSSMB representatives met on December 8th. “We sensed a very small openness to the idea that new construction might be needed,” underlines Geneviève Guay, a member of the Coalition who attended.