Four young people who were about to start their 1D high school in a basketball concentration with a good reputation in Montreal learned at the last minute on Monday that they were suspended. A situation deplored by the director of the program, who is actively campaigning so that this situation does not happen again and who challenges the Minister of Education, Jean-François Roberge.
Sara Badrelama, 12, had been preparing all summer. The girl of 1 meter 71, that The duty met at her home in a modest neighborhood of Laval, participated diligently in camps and training to prepare for the basketball program at Lucien-Pagé, a public secondary school in Montreal. To finally learn this week that she will have to resign herself to going to her neighborhood school instead.
“I was really disappointed when I learned that I couldn’t go to Lucien-Pagé, because the goal of my training this summer was to have a good level. At my neighborhood school, I don’t share this passion, whereas at Pagé, it’s different”.
However, she had been participating in the program since last year, in sixth grade, which is open to young people from Montreal and elsewhere from the age of five. She was playing in a competitive team in the colors of the program.
“Her mother and I noticed a big change when she started playing. Before, she was not interested in school,” says Salahdine Badrelama. Her daughter felt different because of her tallness and playing made her feel more normal. The program is affordable, he adds, and he doesn’t have the money to enroll it outside of school.
Receiving the call on Monday disappointed him. He explains that, since the family resides in Laval, his daughter is considered an “extraterritorial” student. The rules state that his registration must be canceled if the school is full.
Disadvantaged students discriminated against
The situation surprises Alder Pierre, director of the Pagé Basketball program for 14 years. It can accommodate 28 students and, as of Wednesday morning, only 22 were registered, not counting the four offshore students recently excluded.
“Regardless of their financial situation or their cultural background, it gave them access to a high-level elite program, comparable to sports studies,” he laments. The program he coordinates has existed for nearly 30 years and is supported by Basketball Québec.
“The specificity of our program is that we have a structured framework. Young people have periods of study, accounts to be rendered and rules to follow, underlines the director. Young people like Sara are discriminated against because they don’t have the chance to go private or to a sports-study program. They have to be given the chance to have access to good services in a public school. »
Sara’s father sent a message on Tuesday to various people at the Center de services scolaire de Montréal (CSSDM) for the decision to be reconsidered. But the answer, “dry” and impersonal, disappointed him. “It’s like teenagers are numbers,” he says.
This is the second time in three years that Alder Pierre has faced the rule regarding extraterritorial students. He therefore decided to fight tooth and nail to obtain an exemption from the admissions policy for the basketball program of the Lucien-Pagé school and to make the policy on extraterritorial students “more humane”. He notably wrote to the Minister of Education, Jean-François Roberge, on Tuesday.
“Sports concentrations should be recognized at the ministry and officially in school service centres,” he thinks. That would remove the student location rule. »
The one who grew up in Montreal North himself attended the Lucien-Pagé school and he recognizes himself in these young people. “I had what, today, I want to give back. If that rule had been in place, I wouldn’t have been able to go,” he says.