| ALLISON LAMPERT | |
| The Gazette |
January 17, 2005
|
The sun is rising as Patricia Cantwell and her two sons walk down Wellington St., dodging puddles of melting ice on the sidewalk.
She hears footsteps in the slush behind her and turns to find a classmate of her older son Dylan, 13, running toward them.
"Hi, Jonathan," she tells the winded sixth-grader, who lives around the corner on Charon St.
"You probably ran from your door to catch us."
The four join the stream of students and parents heading toward St. Gabriel School, in the heart of Point St. Charles.
It's an increasingly rare scene. Dwindling enrolment in Montreal's English schools, and growing demand by parents for specialized programs, have left more and more students riding yellow buses to more distant schools.
Tonight, English Montreal School Board commissioners will decide whether to close St. Gabriel and five other schools this June because of low enrolment. If St. Gabriel closes, the students would have to be bused out of their community next year.
Closing St. Gabriel, the last English school in Point St. Charles, is yet one more example of how the traditional neighbourhood school - advocated by former education minister Pauline Marois in the late 1990s as ideal for children - is disappearing in Montreal.
The demise of neighbourhood schools is a trend English-language educators predicted decades ago.
"The minister (Marois) should have realized that we've closed so many schools, we can't have neighbourhood schools any more," said Horace Goddard, chairperson of the EMSB's long-range planning committee.
It's a reality the city's French schools are now facing as well. This academic year, the Commission scolaire de Montreal identified 20 schools at risk of eventually closing because of low enrolment.
Fiscally, closing small schools makes sense, since boards are funded per pupil and can offer more services in larger schools.
But there's also a social cost to shutting schools like St. Gabriel, where proximity encourages parental and community involvement. Cantwell, for example, doesn't just walk her kids to school. In the afternoon, she volunteers at the Point St. Charles YMCA, where her kids Dylan and James, 6, are members of an after-school homework club.
Recognizing the value of Montreal's neighbourhood schools, a French school boards' federation has called for extra government funding to keep them open. Quebec currently gives additional support to the last village school in rural areas.
"It will be difficult to maintain all schools," acknowledged Denis Pouliot, spokesperson for the Federation des commissions scolaires du Quebec. "But at least, we can look at every possible option to save them. It (closing) should not just be about money."
Over the last 20 years, the number of public elementary schools in Quebec has declined to 1,789 from 1,852. The number of high schools has shrunk to 427 from 588, figures from Quebec's Education Department show.
A lower birthrate has resulted in fewer students in Quebec, especially in Montreal.
The CSDM, for example, lost more than 1,000 students this year.
And even having ample school-age children in a neighbourhood is no indication of a thriving neighbourhood school. Finding a school with the right French, music, or academic program is often more of a lure for parents than proximity.
"Parents will go wherever the programs they like are offered," Goddard said. "We can't offer French immersion programs at every school."
But not every school can garner the same community involvement as a neighbourhood school.
At St. Gabriel, two parents volunteer regularly in Virginia Kourakis's Cycle 1 class, which mixes students in Grades 1 and 2.
In class, Kourakis is going over the children's homework assignment - the creation of a "counting book" that has them practising their skills at drawing, writing and using numbers from one to 10.
From time to time, children leave in pairs to practise their reading and math skills with parents Susan Matchett and Jacqueline Grenier.
"A lot of the parents who volunteer here, we're just a few steps away from the school," Grenier said. "This is such a close community."
Such volunteerism in a community where some can't afford bus passes, let alone cars, would probably disappear if St. Gabriel closes, Grenier said.
After St. Gabriel's last bell rings at 2:15, Cantwell picks up her kids and they walk to the local YMCA. Cantwell volunteers at the youth centre downstairs, while James and another student from St. Gabriel do their homework with youth worker Joanne Levasseur.
"How do you spell one?" James asks her.
"How do you think you spell it?" she replies.
"W-A-N?" he asks.
"No, but I'll give you a hint. It starts with an 'o,' " she says.
"O-N-E," he says tentatively.
"Very good. Are you writing a story?" she asks.
"No. A counting book."
Because St. Gabriel is close by, James benefits from extra one-on-one time with Levasseur.
Soon, her group will grow to eight, after buses carrying students from St. John Bosco and Westmount Park elementary schools arrive. By 3 p.m., the Westmount Park kids are trickling in.
One greets Cantwell by name as she works downstairs, helping the children with their homework. Even if St. Gabriel closes, Cantwell said she'll continue volunteering at the Y.
While Dylan is off to high school next year, James will probably switch to St. John Bosco, a bilingual school in Notre Dame de Grace. Instead of picking up James at school, she'd meet him with the other kids at the bus stop on the corner of Ash Ave. and LeBer St. She's not looking forward to it.
"It would be a big change for him."
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Six EMSB schools at risk of closing
Proportion
Number School of students
Elementary schools of students capacity bused to school
St. Gabriel School,
Point St. Charles 183 345 39%
McLearon School,
Pointe aux Trembles 243 365 87%
St. Ignatius of Loyola,
Notre Dame de Grace 180 320 29%
St. Patrick School,
Plateau Mont Royal 79 560 83%
High schools
Wagar High School,
Cote St. Luc 302 600 N/A
St. Pius X High School,
Northeast Montreal 230 700 N/A
Enrolment figures are from September 2003.
source: english montreal school board
alampert@thegazette.canwest.com
