Elementary differences

>> English school board raises hopes, axes former Catholic school

by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

As news crews waited for the final bell outside a sprawling, modern two-storey elementary school in southern NDG last Wednesday, teachers gave kids of the soon-to-be-extinct John XXIII school a final lesson on how to handle the electronic media. Just before ushering them out another exit, teachers instructed the pupils not to speak to the inquisitive reporters who might buttonhole them about their school's sad fate.

In spite of being denied even the predictable weepy-eyed juvenile threnodies for the local TV news, many John XXIII's parents expressed disappointment with the school closure. The English Montreal School Board was legally in a position to close the school since parents ran out of the cash required to maintain their lawsuit to keep it open this spring. Yet recently board officials had hinted that the school might avoid the chop. At the most recent EMSB meeting, several commissioners argued that closing the school just two months before the next academic year would unduly inconvenience parents. In May, EMSB commissioner George Vathilakis described the prospects of John XXIII closing as "very remote."

Although John XXIII had been targeted for closure due to its puny student body, the board also marketed the school's small student population as a virtue. Promo material promised that John XXIII's "low student/teacher ratios" would provide "for a more active and personalized relationship between student and teacher."

Now Vathilakis says that schools with fewer than 225 children--John XXIII schooled about 85--are fodder for chopping. "For the school to have healthy service, they must have healthy enrolment numbers," he says. "We disserve the kids by keeping small schools open."

Some blame the board for low enrolment. "Before you close schools, why not just redefine bussing and school boundaries?" asks Kim DeLisi, a parent who helped with the futile legal bid to keep John XXIII afloat. DeLisi complains that while the school board spends taxpayer cash to hire high-powered lawyers from the prestigious Ogilvy Renault, parents have had to pay legal fees out of threadbare pockets. "We had fundraisers, car washes and we collected cans and brought them to Provigo. It was damn hard to raise funds."

DeLisi also notes that the EMSB, dominated by former Protestant School Board commissioners, has shown a strong preference to axe former Catholic schools. DeLisi says formerly Protestant schools such as Nesbitt elementary bolstered faltering enrolment by expanding the geographical area from which parents are allowed to send their children, a luxury not afforded former Catholic schools like John XXIII. Vathilakis describes charges of anti-Catholic bias on the EMSB as "thoroughly absurd."

"The problems at the EMSB are a cat fight between Catholics and Protestants," says Guilano d'Andrea, who recently wrested control of the East-End wing of Alliance Quebec. "If they want to make a new Northern Ireland, they're chugging down the right road." He says he will use Alliance funds to help parents fight other school closures. "Alliance Quebec money could be going to fight court cases against EMSB," says d'Andrea. "Won't that be a twist? Until now, the AQ has only spoken out on issues involving the Quebec government quashing the rights of anglos and never on anglo institutions quashing the rights of anglophones."