Laval private school wins a reprieve

MONTREAL – An embattled French private school in Laval will have to tweak its successful formula when class starts this month as it begins the task of winning back the confidence of the Education Department, which was poised to shut it down only a week ago.

School officials and parents are heaving a sigh of relief after the Academie Lavalloise was given a one-year reprieve yesterday despite not following certain government regulations that had jeopardized the school’s viability for this year. Although the school will have to re-apply for a permit for next year, Education Minister Michelle Courchesne has agreed to keep it open for at least one year while it cleans up its act.

But Courchesne made it clear in a news release yesterday the school is still at risk of not having its permit renewed for September 2011 if it doesn’t follow all the rules governing private schools and the curriculum.

In addition to its unorthodox accounting practices, the school will have to address its overly structured teaching of English in kindergarten and the fact it was using specialists who weren’t certified in the subjects they were teaching. The school was also told it must use required resource materials, obey maximum teacher-pupil ratios, use approved teaching material and conform to report card requirements.

New principal Veronique Guindon, who met with Education Department officials yesterday, said she was confident all the problems would be corrected. "There’s a lot of work to do," Guindon noted.

Parents don’t seem to have lost confidence in the school’s ability to deliver quality education. The non-subsidized elementary school, which charges about $5,150 per student, has been feeding the city’s top private high schools.

"They just have to tweak some things," said Martin Daigneault, who has two children registered at the school. "There are a lot of schools that do certain things they shouldn’t be doing, but this school had too many issues."

Everyone seems to agree the reason the school was singled out was because it had been on the Education Department’s radar for about seven years and had been asked repeatedly to improve certain areas.

"The Education Department’s confidence in (owner and ex-principal David Zakaib) had been lost in the last seven years," said Vincent Auclair, MNA for Laval’s Vimont riding, where the school is located.

"There was a lot of friction between (Zakaib) and the government. He wanted to run his school his way, but the government has certain requirements."

Zakaib has stepped aside so Guindon can run the school.

Although the Education Department’s news release doesn’t mention the teaching of English, Guindon said yesterday the school’s practice of alternating days in English and French at the kindergarten level – where English is not supposed to be formally taught – had raised the Education Department’s ire.

"Our approach was a little too academic," she said. "The children have to be playing while learning."

Daigneault said the school community was able to get all five Laval MNAs working on a solution because the plug was about to be pulled on the school just weeks before the start of classes, and "you can’t just throw 300 kids in the street with no schools available."