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MONTREAL – Steve Bletas, the embattled chairperson of the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board, has stepped down from the role he has held since the board was created.
Bletas has been under fire from the association that represents the board’s administrators, which alleged he had over-stepped his role.
He resigned as chairperson on Wednesday at a special board meeting but is staying on as a commissioner.
Bletas pointed to health reasons for his decision, which came before a report from a board working group looking into the principals’ claims recommended that he give “serious reflection” to his ability to stay on as chairperson.
Because of the effect the situation was causing him emotionally and then physically, Bletas said: “I felt it wasn’t really worth it.”
“Perhaps at that point there is a need for a new leadership with a different style,” Bletas told The Gazette on Thursday. In a rare move, the principals’ association complained about Bletas in a letter last month to the board’s director-general. The allegations aimed at Bletas included: “calling school principals and interfering in their administrative role or making direct reference to what they should be doing in their schools”; “making abusive accusations toward administrators”; and “contradicting information principals have received from the director-general.”
At Wednesday’s meeting, a report from the board working group charged with looking into the administrators concerns concluded they were valid. One of its recommendations was that Bletas apologize publicly “for his inappropriate actions” to all board staff.
The Sir Wilfrid Laurier Administrators’ Association was pleased with the conclusions from the task force, said its head Anna Villalta.
Bletas disputed all the administrators’ allegations in an interview with The Gazette last week. On Thursday, he lamented that he only learned the details of their complaints at Wednesday’s meeting. Bletas said he apologized at the meeting if he over-stepped his authority.
The board’s council of commissioners includes 19 elected members.
It sets policy and plays an oversight role, while board administrators manage daily operations.
Bletas’s connection to one of the candidates for a senior board position is also going under the microscope.
The board recently passed a resolution asking its ethics commissioner to look into “alleged irregularities” and the circumstances regarding the posting and hiring process for the assistant director-general’s position.
Bletas has said it’s the process that is being questioned.
A follow-up resolution added three questions to the ethics commissioner’s mandate that Bletas wanted included, such as whether a telephone conversation he had with one applicant contravened the board’s code of ethics, and whether the existing relationship between him and one of the applicants tainted the fairness of the selection committee.
“I want the ethics commissioner to ask those specific questions,” said Bletas, who acknowledged he is friends with the applicant. Bletas said the phone conversation had nothing to do with the job opening.
Bletas told last week’s meeting he believed he hadn’t done anything wrong and said he never denied knowing one of the candidates. Others knew that applicant and other candidates, he said. In hindsight, Bletas told the council he should have withdrawn his name from the selection committee.
He was first elected as chairperson in 1998. A news release from the board said he was “instrumental” in acquiring funding for new schools in Rawdon, Blainville and Repentigny.
“People can say what they want. But I know what I did, I did with passion and heart,” Bletas said. Robert Vallerand, the board’s director-general, said Bletas had done wonderful things for the board such as expanding its school network, creating its foundation and sensitizing “political elements” in Quebec to the needs of students in the Laval, Laurentians, Lanaudière regions, which make up the board’s territory.
“Nobody can remove that from his legacy,” Vallerand said.
bbranswell@montrealgazette.com
ACDSA Note: For Sir Wilfid Laurier School Board’s Less Than Forthcoming Press release click here
De l’amiante dans une école secondaire de Montréal
SARAH-MAUDE LEFEBVRE , JOURNAL DE MONTRÉAL
L’école secondaire John F. Kennedy, située dans le quartier Saint-Michel à Montréal, est fermée depuis ce matin pour des tests de qualité de l’air urgents, puisque des traces d’amiante ont été détectées à l’intérieur de l’établissement.
Tout comme l’école secondaire, le Centre d’études commerciales John F. Kennedy a aussi été fermé jeudi et le sera demain, à “titre de précaution”.
Dans un communiqué envoyé aux médias jeudi après-midi, la Commission scolaire English-Montréal a indiqué que des “traces d’amiantes” ont été découvertes dans deux salles de ventilation du bâtiment et que des tests de vérification de l’air doivent être effectués rapidement.
« Notre personnel est vigilant et notre position est de ne prendre aucun risque dès qu’un problème de ce genre est découvert. Nous collaborerons avec Santé Publique et prendrons toutes les précautions nécessaires avant que le personnel et les élèves ne soient autorisés à retourner dans le bâtiment”, a indiqué la présidente de la CSEM, Angela Mancini.
Les premières traces d’amiante ont été découvertes il y a trois semaines. Une firme a été engagée pour traiter le problème. Or, des tests supplémentaires ont par la suite révélé la présence d’amiante dans d’autres parties du bâtiment. C’est pourquoi la commission scolaire a décidé de fermer les portes de son école aujourd’hui ou demain, afin de tester la qualité de l’air
The following article is from The Suburban, May 9th, 2012
Family ministry investigating Greendale pre-kindergarden problem
LBPSB accused of misusing school taxes
By Robert Frank The Suburban
Last week’s debacle at Greendale School in Pierrefonds has left more than just distraught parents trying to figure out what happened. Now the Quebec government is looking into what went wrong.
The Lester B. Pearson School Board (LBPSB) had been charging parents $100 per month — which amounts to less than $5 per day — for a pre-kindergarten service at Greendale, which Quebec Ministry of the Family (MFA) inspectors precipitously shut down, April 30.
Mothers interviewed by The Suburban did not understand the three-way squabble between two different Quebec government departments and LBPSB. They were under the false impression that Greendale school’s pre-kindergarten program for four-year-olds had been authorized and subsidized by the Quebec Ministry of Education.
Retired West Island teacher Chris Eustace, who has followed LBPSB policies closely for the past 12 years, said that the subsidy money instead came from misused local school taxes. He believes that LBPSB officials misled parents.
“I feel very sad for these young parents who were led to believe this,” sympathized Eustace. “However, it is good that the government is putting its foot down.”
The losers are the four-year-olds, their parents and private day care clients, Eustace explained.
“LBPSB didn’t receive any extra money from Quebec City to create new pre-kindergarten programs for four-year-olds — so it subsidized them out of the school board’s existing operating budget, taking money intended for students aged 5-17.”
Parents, four-year olds caught in bureaucratic crossfire
Parents couldn’t fathom why the two Quebec government departments conveyed completely opposite messages.
Greendale parent Laura Bodnick acknowledged that MFA sent her a letter March 22, telling her that the school’s daycare service was illegal.
“It said that they might close the facility as of April 23, but school board officials told us not to worry,” she said “They assured us that nothing would happen before the end of the current school year.”
Family minister Yolande James’ office has asked her department to find out what happened and whether MFA regulations need to be harmonized with Ministry of Education regulations.
“The ministry will be taking a closer look at the situation,” James’ press secretary Olivier Duchesneau told The Suburban in an interview. “The MFA’s regulations are aimed at daycares, whilst Ministry of Education regulations are aimed at academic education.”
During a news conference last week, LBPSB director general Robert Mills told journalists that one Quebec law governs daycare for four-year-olds in schools while a different law specifies standards for five-year olds.
“At this stage it’s too soon to say whether this is a problem of harmonization, so we’re looking at the situation,” responded Duchesneau. “When a problem like that arises, we carefully take stock of the entire situation. Is the Greendale problem generalized or is it one of only a handful of problems?”
“The Quebec daycare network is young and still developing,” continued Duchesneau. “As we speak, there are more than 207,000 seven-dollar-a-day daycare places in Quebec, out of a total of 245,000 places, including unsubsidized facilities, which are regulated by the laws of the Quebec Ministry of the Family.”
“So we’re looking at the situation in order to determine to what extent overlapping jurisdictions might have become a problem as the daycare network has evolved during the past 15 years or so.”
Those figures don’t include daycare places in Quebec schools, for children aged five or more, which are governed by the Education Act.
Middle-class subsidies
Quebec does subsidize pre-kindergarten for underprivileged children, Mr. Mills said. However, he cited a 2006 Quebec English School Board Association report that suggested that pre-kindergarten might benefit four-year-olds from advantaged families, as well. However, he did not offer why LBPSB opted to use school taxes to subsidize middle-class parents when it created the program at Greendale.
Quebec’s English school boards have been plagued by falling enrolment for decades, since restrictive language laws and a subsequent exodus from the province cut its English-speaking population by half and restricted entry to English schools.
Greendale four-year olds now face a slow, 5.3 km LBPSB-subsidized bus ride during rush hour every school day to get from Pierrefonds to their new school premises in Pointe Claire. Parents are required to pick their children up there at the end of each school day.
“They knew about the problems from the outset,” Mr. Eustace concluded, “but LBPSB administrators told parents ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll manage it.’ — and in the end, it completely collapsed, as we witnessed a few days ago.”
The following article is from The Chronicle May 9th, 2012
Pearson shuts down Greendale Pre-K Parents livid over ‘ridiculous’ sequence of events.
The Chronicle – Marc Lalonde
Parents ofGreendaleelementary school pre-kindergarten students will no longer be able to send their kids to half- or full-day pre-K at the school, but they will be able to leave them there and drop them off there for the rest of the school year, Lester B. Pearson School Board officials announced Monday night.
“Effective immediately, we will no longer be holding pre-kindergarten classes at Greendale elementary school,” Pearson chairman Suanne Stein Day said at a hastily-arranged press conference Monday night at the board’sDorvaloffices.
Quebec’s Family Ministry ordered the board shut down the pre-kindergarten classes, based on a “number of conditions that were not satisfactory,” Pearson director general Bob Mills said, the ministry citing inadequate security, among other shortcomings required by the ministry, which oversees day cares throughout the province.
The solution, for now, is to bus the students from Greendale to the former Seigniory school building inPointe Claire, which the board uses for international education, where they will be instructed throughout the day and then bussed back to Greendale for dismissal, Stein Day confirmed, even though thePointe Clairebuilding does not have a day-care permit, either.
The closure of theGreendalepre-K facilities came about because of a complaint from a local day care, officials said.
The decision will have a major impact on the future of the board’s other pre-kindergarten classes at Christmas Park, Thorndale, Springdale and Forest Hill (junior) elementary schools which are all operating without valid day-care permits and require them, according to provincial rules. A fifth Pearson pre-kindergarten, operated out of Verdun elementary school in Verdun, is in a ‘milieu defavorise,’ and thus falls under the oversight of the Education Ministry, to whose norms all of Pearson’s schools building must adhere.
Pearson officials proudly showed off the day-care permit they received for the board’s international pre-kindergarten in Dorval, but admitted they don’t yet have any for the other schools – and might not ever.
“Our first and only concern is the safety and well-being of these students and students and parents need to be helped by the board to finish out the year,” Mills said, with Day adding it would be a “huge” disappointment to have to drop the pre-kindergarten program from the Pearson repertoire, but the costs of bringing the affected school buildings up to Family Ministry codes may be too unwieldy.
Greendalepre-K parents were informed of the decision at the same time as the press Monday night at a special meeting at the school.
The reaction from parents was not muted.
“The whole thing is pretty disturbing,” said parent Rachel Fiore, whose four-year-old son attends theGreendalepre-K. “The Ministry of Education defends us, the Ministry of Families is a mess and I’m not happy about the way the government is handling this situation. Some parents are still upset because it’s still an illegal process, but I’m not. I believe if you put your child in day care, the Ministry of Families should look after them, but I chose pre-school for my son – not day care. That’s the choice I made for my son – to put him in something different,” she said.
The sage began months ago, when Pearson was advised they would need day care permits for the pre-kindergarten classes, but board officials felt the classes would fall under the supervision of the Ministry of Education, not that of the Family Ministry, which oversees day-care centres.
Fellow pre-K parent Natalie Kisil was livid when she showed up to the school with son Connor, and was handed a letter advising her that the pre-K was illegal and would be shut down immediately.
“This is ridiculous. They don’t care what is happening to these kids. A four-year-old has no voice, but what do they do when his whole world is upset. This is so stupid,” she said.
- Article Source: The Chronicle – Marc Lalonde
Sarah-Maude Lefebvre Journal de Montréal
Le conseil provisoire qui se penchera sur la gestion des universités aura beaucoup de dossiers à fouiller. Voyages luxueux, parachutes dorés… la liste des dépenses de ces institutions est longue, comme le démontre une compilation effectuée par le Journal.
Année après année, le Journal lève le voile sur plusieurs dépenses effectuées par les dirigeants des universités. Récemment, on apprenait que l’Université Concordia a déboursé plus de 2,4 millions $ en salaires et indemnités de départ pour cinq de ses cadres.
Encore en avril dernier, l’Université McGill, l’Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) et l’École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) ont déboursé chacun près de 10 000 $ pour envoyer leurs représentants faire leur promotion au Brésil.
Indifférence et cynisme
Alors que Québec propose aux étudiants de créer un conseil provisoire qui se penchera sur la gestion des universités, il est temps plus que jamais de faire « un grand ménage », croit Claire Joly de la Ligue des contribuables.
« Rien ne semble encore avoir été fait par les universités pour régler les problèmes qui ont été dénoncés au fil des ans, dit-elle. On dirait que les universités et le gouvernement sont indifférents et cyniques alors qu’on parle de l’argent des contribuables. »
Selon les associations étudiantes, plusieurs aspects de la gestion des universités sont à revoir, à commencer par les dépenses en matière de voyage et de publicité.
« Quand on voit une immense publicité de l’Université de Montréal au Centre Bell, on peut se demander à qui cela sert. Même dans les universités, on voit des publicités pour d’autres institutions. La compétition est féroce. Cela fait partie des endroits où on pourrait commencer à couper », croit Martine Desjardins, présidente de la Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec.
Le scandale de l’Îlot voyageur
Le fiasco de l’Îlot Voyageur de l’UQAM a coûté près de 300 millions aux contribuables. En 2005, l’université s’était associée à la firme Busac pour la construction de résidences étudiantes, de bureaux ainsi que d’un stationnement souterrain. Le Journal révélait en décembre qu’un escalier ne menant nulle part, valant entre 150 000 $ et 200 000 $, y a été construit.
Des parachutes dorés
L’Université Concordia a déboursé plus de 2,4 millions $ en salaires et indemnités de départ pour cinq de ses cadres en 2009-2010. L’ex-rectrice de Concordia Judith Woodsworth a elle-même quitté son poste à mi-mandat avec plus de 700 000 $ en poche, avant de retourner y enseigner. Trois ans et demi plus tôt, la même institution avait dû verser une indemnité de 1,3 ?M$ au recteur Claude Lajeunesse. L’ex-secrétaire générale de l’Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), Michèle Gauthier, a quitté son poste en 2009 avec 288 000 $ en salaires et indemnités. L’ex vice-rectrice à l’administration de l’Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO), Hélène Grand-Maître, a obtenu une indemnité de départ de 142 427 $, en 2009. Elle a été nommée vice-présidente de l’Université du Québec.
En collaboration avec l’Agence QMI
Campus satellites
Selon une étude effectuée par le Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en analyse des organisations (CIRANO), on dénombrait en 2008-2009 plus de 297 sites délocalisés d’enseignement, ce qui représente des millions de dollars en investissements de la part des universités. Voici quelques exemples :
Université de Montréal : campus à Montréal, Terrebonne, Laval, Longueuil
Université de Université du Québec en Outaouais : campus à Gatineau et St-Jérôme
Université de Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue : campus à Rouyn-Noranda, Val-d’Or et Amos
Université de Université du Québec à Rimouski : campus à Rimouski et à Lévis
Université de Université Sherbrooke : campus à Sherbrooke et à Longueuil
Université de Institut national de recherche scientifique : campus à Québec, Montréal, Laval, Varennes et Pointe-Claire
École nationale d’administration publique : campus à Québec, Montréal, Gatineau, Trois-Rivières et Saguenay
Jardinier et appartement payés
En 2006, le Journal révélait que le contrat de travail de la rectrice de McGill, Heather Munroe-Blum, stipulait que cette dernière pouvait se faire payer un certain nombre de dépenses reliées à sa résidence privée. En 2003, McGill lui a ainsi remboursé près de 30 000 $ pour de l’entretien ménager et 1 500 $ pour du jardinage. Le successeur de Judy Woodsworth à la tête de Concordia, Frederick Lowy, s’est fait offrir par l’université un condo évalué à plus d’un million de dollars, au centre-ville de Montréal. Son contrat comprenait aussi une allocation de 3 000 $ par mois pour y vivre.
Des salaires astronomiques
Brenda Branswell
Montreal Gazette
Since the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board was founded in 1998, Steve Bletas has been its familiar public frontman.
But after 14 years as an elected commissioner and the board’s chairperson, he finds himself at the centre of controversy at the Rosemèrebased board.
In an unusual step, the association that represents about 60 administrators at the board complained to director-general Robert Vallerand last week about Bletas’s interaction with some of them and suggested he had overstepped his role.
The letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Gazette, raised concerns about recent communications with the board’s chairperson “and some commissioners about issues involving their schools and the direction that these individuals would like the administrators to take.”
It went on to list assertions about the recent communications between the chairperson and principals in some schools. The allegations directed at Bletas include: “calling school principals and interfering in their administrative role, or making direct reference to what they should be doing in their schools,” “making abusive accusations toward administrators” and “contradicting information principals have received from the director-general.”
The letter doesn’t elaborate on the allegations. The head of the Sir Wilfrid Laurier Administrators’ Association declined to be interviewed.
The missive also said that since their direct supervisor is the director-general and not the chairperson or members of the council of commissioners “all communication should come from the director-general or assistant director-general.” It concluded by asking that all commissioners refrain from contacting administrators directly.
The council of commissioners at the Sir Wilfrid Laurier board is made up of 19 elected commissioners and two parent commissioners. While administrative staff look after the day-to-day running of the board, the council plays an oversight role.
In an interview with The Gazette on Wednesday, Bletas disputed all the allegations and called the letter derogatory and libellous.
“My question would be why haven’t they approached me prior to discuss all this, because usually you sit down and you can discuss things and how things can be corrected,” he said.
“Am I over-bearing? I guess I appear that way. My voice is that way. My size is that way. Hard to tell because I’m in a wheelchair. … Am I emotional? Absolutely. Do I have a passion for the school board? Absolutely. I’m not going to say no,” Bletas said.
He countered that there are principals who always call him and other commissioners and offered examples of when they’ve asked for his help.
“Do I speak to school principals? Of course, I do,” said Bletas, who noted commissioners aren’t just there to rubber stamp things. They listen to parents’ concerns.
“But I would never call and tell a principal what to do,” he said. He also shot down the “abusive accusations toward administrators” allegation.
Bletas said he doesn’t believe he’s overstepping his chairperson role. “My interest is the population. And I represent the people who elected me in office.”
With a special board meeting looming on Wednesday evening, Bletas told The Gazette he wasn’t stepping down. At its meeting last week, the council mandated Vallerand to look into the administrators’ concerns with help from three commissioners.
Allegations of irregularities in the selection process for hiring a new assistant director-general have also surfaced at the board. The council has given the board’s external ethics commissioner a special mandate to look into the process.
Carolyn Curiale, the board’s vice-chair, said that under Bletas’s chairmanship the board “has gone in a lot of positive directions.”
The Sir Wilfrid Laurier board’s territory covers Laval, the Laurentians and Lanaudière regions.
For years retired teacher, Chris Eustace, has questioned the Lester B. Pearson School Board about the legality and economic validity of the Pre-K program. For the same number of years, the school board has defended its Pre K position with arrogance, deceit and lack of transparency. Ignoring a community petition, education department advice and community concerns, the LBPSB went ahead with the Pre-K program.
Since the illegal operation of the LBPSB Pre-K at the Marcus Tabachnick pavilion surfaced earlier this year, the board has steadfastly stated that it was unaware that it needed a permit from the Ministère de la Famille et des Aînés.
Now, in an investigative report by Brenda Branswell of the Montreal Gazette, it has become clear that the Lester B Pearson School Board was told in 2007 “that the board needed daycare permits for its new kindergarten for 4-year olds program”.
The LBPSB Director, Robert Mills, none assuring and less than credible comment that “I’m not going to say that it didn’t exist, because five years, things can happen” should set off warning bells and light bulbs at MELS.
For a leader to acknowledge that he might not have been aware of all the details of such an important dossier because “five years, things can happen” is simply incredulous and irresponsible.
Indeed, by extension, this lack of awareness should put other programs such as the LBPSB International School and its language school under the microscope…. for what other regulations did the LBPSB ignore?
The LBPSB arrogant and reckless implementation of its Pre-K program has done irreparable damage to community groups and individuals alike.
Through LBPSB illegal Pre-K Daycare operations, well established daycares in the West Island were raided and undermined. Some of these daycare owners were vilified and accused of putting profits ahead of children’s welfare and cast an ill directed shadow over their previously well respected establishments.
Parents were misled to believe that the Pre-K operations of the LBPSB were well thought out, superior, and most of all that they were legal operations. Now, these same parents are left with uncertainty, but are being made to believe that the fault for the closings lies with the private daycare owners.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The LBPSB Pre-K problems stem from the school board’s own doing.
The Education Minister and the Ministère de la Famille et des Aînés must take the necessary steps to reign in this rogue school board and make the Director General, Bob Mills and Chairman Suanne Day, accountable for the Board’s illegal actions and its continuing effort to, as one newspaper put it “skirting a government directive”.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!”
MONTREAL – Quebec’s Education Department says it told the Lester B. Pearson School Board in 2007 that the board needed daycare permits for its new kindergarten for 4-year-olds program.
The Pearson pre-K programs have come under scrutiny by the Ministry of Family and Seniors because they don’t have the daycare permits needed to operate.
On Tuesday, the board relocated students from its Greendale Elementary pre-K to another facility after the family ministry said it would evacuate and close the “illegal” daycare.
The Education Department had informed the board it should take the necessary steps with the ministry to obtain the daycare permits if it wanted to do its 4-year-olds’ kindergarten program, said Esther Chouinard, a spokesperson with the department.
The Education Department only finances 4-year-olds’ kindergarten in disadvantaged areas.
The board has said it didn’t believe it needed the permits when it launched the pre-K program, assuming it was under the jurisdiction of the Education Department.
It said it only learned last fall that it needed a daycare permit for its international pre-kindergarten program in Dorval, which also accepts 3-year-olds. (The board received the permit on Monday.)
Robert Mills, the board’s director-general, told The Gazette he doesn’t remember a reference to permits and the family ministry, “but I’m not going to say that it didn’t exist, because five years, things can happen.”
What Mills clearly recalls is that the board couldn’t use Education Department funding for the program. The board has used money collected from school taxes. Parents also help pay for it.
The board launched the kindergarten for 4-year-olds to help prepare children for school, but five years later, the program’s future is in doubt.
It operates in five schools aside from the government-funded program at Verdun Elementary. Because the program isn’t financed by the Education Department, it falls under the Ministry of Family and Seniors, which has taken issue with two of the pre-Ks so far because they didn’t have daycare permits.
“We’re falling through the cracks” between the two government departments, said Suanne Stein Day, the board’s chairperson.
While they don’t want to criticize the family ministry, Stein Day acknowledged the board finds it odd that they’re under its jurisdiction.
It’s the same kind of school program that the board is allowed to offer to children in disadvantaged areas, Stein Day said. “We’re not talking about little ones. We’re not talking about diapers. … We feel these kids are ready to start their educational process, and we know that our facilities are perfectly safe for them.”
The board strongly believes in kindergarten for 4-year-olds, said Stein Day, mentioning studies that show some children aren’t ready to start kindergarten. “And we want to get them ready in a program designed specifically for 4-year-olds. It’s play-based. It’s between what is a traditional daycare and a traditional kindergarten. And it gets them ready for that big step into kindergarten.”
The future of the board’s international pre-K in Dorval seems secure. The board proudly unveiled its new daycare permit on Monday.
But none of the five kindergarten for 4-year-olds programs that it offers of its own volition has the required permit. The program is offered this year at Springdale, Thorndale, Birchwood, Greendale and Christmas Park schools.
“For next year the program is in doubt, yes,” Stein Day told reporters on Monday.
The board announced a substantial hike in the price for next fall because of budget cuts and registration is lower than in previous years, she said.
If there isn’t interest, the board probably won’t go to the trouble of trying to make any school comply with the family ministry’s requirements, Stein Day said. “But that remains to be seen.”
The board still plans to look at its schools to see what would be needed to make them compliant to obtain daycare permits and what it would cost. “Hopefully it’s not the end,” Stein Day said.
The board’s commissioners passed a resolution last month asking the education minister to grant a derogation so that its schools can offer the pre-K program without a daycare permit. It hasn’t received a response yet.
Pearson board relocates Greendale pre-K
By Brenda Branswell, Gazette Education ReporterMay 1, 2012
MONTREAL – Faced with a government-ordered evacuation and closing of its kindergarten for 4-year-olds program at Greendale Elementary in Pierrefonds, the Lester B. Pearson School Board announced Monday night it was relocating the students to another facility for the rest of the school year.
“That facility will no longer house the (program) for the balance of the current school year,” said Robert Mills, the board’s director-general.
Until June 23, the Greendale pre-kindergarten students will be taught at the board’s International Language Centre in Pointe Claire, Mills said. The board will also provide free busing to the children as of Wednesday.
The board has run afoul of Quebec’s Ministry of Family and Seniors this school year at two of its pre-kindergarten programs over daycare permits.
The board maintains it didn’t believe it needed them when it launched the pre-K program, assuming it was under the jurisdiction of the Education Department. (The board doesn’t need daycare permits for the before and after-school daycare that it runs in its elementary schools.)
The Education Department only finances kindergarten for 4-year-olds in disadvantaged areas so the pre-K programs operated at six Pearson schools fall under the Ministry of Family.
The board won’t have a daycare permit at its new location for the Greendale students in Pointe Claire, Mills acknowledged. But the board feels responsible to the students to maintain their academic and after-school care between now and June 23, he said.
The board will continue to work with the government to follow up on the Greendale daycare permit, Mills said. “So we’re not stopping the process,” he said.
Asked how she would respond if someone thought the board was perhaps skirting a government directive, Suanne Stein Day, the board’s chairperson said: “I would respond by saying we’re complying with the orders we received from the Minister of the Family while trying to make sure that our commitments to these children and their families are met.”
Stein Day said the way the Family Ministry works is by dealing with location by location. “They have dealt with the Greendale location. We could not bring the facility up to conformity in time. So they had to follow their processes and close it. And we certainly understand that’s the law we had to follow.”
“As you know we opened up these centres thinking we were operating under the Ministry of Education,” Stein Day said.
If the government receives complaints about other facilities, they will send their inspectors to check if they conform to the regulations, said Stein Day. She said the board doesn’t anticipate that process could play out before the end of the school year.
Before the board’s announcement, Étienne Gauthier, a spokesperson with Ministry of Family and Seniors, noted that the Greendale evacuation notice didn’t “drop from the sky.”
The notice to parents last week with children in the pre-K program stated that a non-compliance notice was sent to the board on Dec. 8, following by a preliminary evacuation notice on March 22.
Mills said it’s a long process to get a government permit.
Parents with children in the Greendale pre-K attended an information session at the school last night.
Natalie Kisil, whose son attends the program, said she was impressed that the board came up with a solution. But it seemed wasteful that the government won’t allow the pre-K to stay put until the end of the school year. Kisil said.
“We’re definitely grateful,” said Lysa Wierzbicki, whose son is in the pre-K. “We had expected the worst.”
Sarah-Maude Lefebvre Journal de Montréal
Le mouvement de grève prend de l’ampleur dans les écoles secondaires de la CSDM. Deux autres établissements, soit l’École Internationale de Montréal et l’école Sophie-Barat, ont dû interrompre leurs cours jeudi, à la suite de pressions d’élèves.
La fermeture des deux établissements a été décidée à la suite d’un vote effectué par le conseil des élèves. Les cours étaient aussi interrompus jeudi à l’école Joseph-François Perrault ainsi qu’à l’Académie Roberval. Les deux établissements terminaient normalement leur troisième et dernière journée de grève consécutive.
Un mouvement en expansion?
La Commission scolaire de Montréal n’a pu confirmer jeudi si des lignes de piquetage avaient été érigées devant d’autres écoles ou encore si le mouvement pourrait s’amplifier vendredi.
“Ça évolue trop rapidement, a affirmé le porte-parole Alain Perron. On demeure en contact avec les directions d’école qui le sont avec les conseils d’élèves. Si les parents se posent des questions, ils n’ont qu’à téléphoner à l’école de leur enfant”.
Le Journal rapportait mercredi que la CSDM s’attire des critiques depuis quelques jours en raison de la grève qui force la fermeture de certaines de ses écoles. Jeudi, la commission scolaire a envoyé une lettre aux parents des élèves, affirmant qu’il était temps de “poser des balises”.
” Les élèves devront choisir une autre forme d’expression que la grève. Si cela n’est pas respecté, le code de vie de l’école, connu des élèves et des parents, sera appliqué. Toute absence devra être motivée et le motif d’une participation à une grève ne sera pas accepté”, indique la lettre.
Les parents inquiets
Préoccupé, le Comité central des parents de la CSDM s’est réuni jeudi afin d’évaluer la situation.
“On est inquiets. L’opinion est mitigée au sein des parents. Certains sont contre, d’autres pour. Mais il y a un consensus par rapport à la sécurité des élèves, explique la présidente Manon Ricard. Chose certaine, on ne veut pas que la situation s’éternise. Les examens du ministère approchent à grands pas et on veut que nos enfants y soient préparés.”
Dans un communiqué envoyé jeudi, le Comité Central a demandé aux associations étudiantes de “respecter les processus démocratiques dans leur assemblées”, indiquant aussi que” trois jours de grève nous semblent une limite à ne pas dépasser, afin que la réussite scolaire de nos jeunes ne soit pas en péril.”
Plusieurs autres commissions scolaires contactées par le Journal ont rapporté qu’aucun vote de grève n’était prévu de leur côté. Toutefois, quatre séances de piquetage auront lieu à l’École Paul-Gérin-Lajoie-d’Outremont la semaine prochaine. Selon le porte-parole de la Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys, Jean-Michel Nahas, ces manifestations de support à la grève étudiante auront lieu de 8h00 à 8h30, avant le début de cours.
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