The school day at Gerald McShane Elementary started off Wednesday with the banging of drums — as parents and students formed a human chain around it shouting “save our school.”
It is the latest effort to prevent McShane and two English Montreal School Board (EMSB) schools — General Vanier Elementary and John Paul I Junior High — from being transferred to a French-language school board to assuage overcrowding in the French system.
“Everyone is just really upset,” said Pino Fundaro, a parent at Gerald McShane. “I don’t think it’s fair.”
In six other schools in Montreal’s east end, parents and students did the same thing. Among them, four of them that aren’t facing a potential transfer.
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“We’re suffering this reality today and they could be suffering tomorrow,” said Francesca Pitruzzello, one of the organizers.
The EMSB is backing a proposal of “cohabitation,” allowing students from the French system to take classes in the three schools facing transfer. However, Quebec Education Minister Jean-François Roberge has signalled this isn’t a long-term solution.
Both spokespeople for the school board and education ministry declined to comment on the situation.
The EMSB is slated to have a special meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday in an effort to work out a possible last-minute alternative. Roberge has set a deadline of June 10 before deciding to transfer the schools.
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