VAUDREUIL – Parents packed the gymnasium at Pierre Elliott Trudeau Elementary school Wednesday night to find out more about a controversial decision to re-draw the zoning lines.
The decsison by the Lester B. Pearson School Board would force 100 families to relocate to Mount Pleasant Elementary in Hudson, 20 kilometres west of their current school.
P.E.T.E.S. is at 103 per cent capacity and the school board has to get the numbers down to 85 per cent capacity in the ever-growing town of Vaudreuil.
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The re-zoning has made for a sad start to the new year for students who will have to leave their friends, teachers and community.
“Ultimately it’s about my son and his education and he is doing fantastic here,” parent Tracie King told Globlal News ahead of Wednesday’s meeting.
School board officials have asked Quebec’s Education Ministry for the right to build another English school in the area, but they haven’t had any response so far. And any new buildings would come too late for those affected by the change.
Deepa Amin is considering several options in order to keep her son at P.E.T.E.S.
“We may get a rental property in the zone, or move in order to keep him here,” she explained.
Other parents told Global News that they will consider sending their children to a nearby French school rather than have to take their children to a school so far outside of the Vaudreuil community.
The governing board says it will petition the City of Vaudreuil to get portables put in so that the school community can stay together.
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