Quebec putting $20.6M into N.D.G. classrooms to relieve overcrowding

Quebec is pumping $20.6 million into two Notre-Dame-de-Grâce schools to help deal with overcrowding.

The Commission scolaire de Montréal says its schools in the area are bursting at the seams, thanks to a demographic boom and the arrival of new immigrants.

“There’s a huge need in N.D.G.,” Immigration Minister Kathleen Weil, who represents N.D.G. in the National Assembly, told reporters during the announcement Tuesday.

Of the allotted sum, $12.6 million will go to renovating a building the CSDM had been renting to Centennial Academy, a private school. The CSDM took back the building in July and has started using part of it as an annex to the 2,000-student École secondaire Saint-Luc on Côte-St-Luc Rd.

But the board said the building, at Prud’homme Ave. and Côte-St-Antoine Rd., needs updates and improvements.

By the time that work is completed in about three years, the school will be able to accommodate 10 high school and five elementary school “classes d’accueil” — integration classes for the children of new immigrants.

Between one-third and onequarter of the roughly 50,000 new immigrants who arrive in Quebec every year are under 18, Weil noted.

“Our schools are receiving all of those students, educating them, teaching them French and ensuring that these kids have a bright future here in Quebec,” she said.

Marie-José Mastromonaco, CSDM commissioner for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, said about 450 classe-d’accueil students registered at Saint-Luc are being sent to schools outside N.D.G. because of a lack of space.

“They just moved to a new country. I think it’s important to be able to give them a classroom close to their home,” Mastromonaco said.

The rest of the provincial money — $8 million — will go to expanding École primaire Sainte-Catherine-de-Sienne, on Somerled Ave., by eight classrooms.

That school — which had about 280 students — has been closed since 2015 because of mould and water-infiltration problems. Though the old building has yet to be demolished, the government had set aside money for its reconstruction. The extra cash announced Tuesday brings the total budget to $21 million and means the school will be able to accommodate about 180 additional students. Mastromonaco said demolition could begin this winter, with the hope that the new school will open for the 2019-2020 school year.

Sainte-Catherine-de-Sienne students were temporarily transferred to a brand new school, Ècole Saint-Raymond on Upper-Lachine Rd., about four kilometres away. When the new Sainte-Catherine-de-Sienne opens, Saint-Raymond will be used to relieve pressure on other overcrowded N.D.G. schools.