French-language high school to be built in Hamilton
800 students from public and Catholic boards will share $25-million building
French public and French Catholic school boards have come together on a new $25-million high school to be built in the city.
The province announced Tuesday it would fund a new French-language secondary school to accommodate 800 students from both boards.
While the boards will operate in the same building, the schools will function separately.
“Their collaboration is a model for how school boards can work together to share facilities that are capable of delivering the full range of programming that students deserve,” Education Minister Mitzie Hunter said at Hamilton City Hall.
This partnership between the Conseil scolaire de district catholique Centre-Sud and the Conseil scolaire ViaHamilton’s
monde brings a resolution to a years-long struggle to bring a new French-language high school to the city.
“It’s been a long and winding road that has led to this place,” said Ted McMeekin, MPP for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale.
The French Catholic board had been embroiled in a battle with the Ministry of Education for a new secondary school for more than 15 years.
The board filed a lawsuit alleging the province discriminated against it under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The French public board said it had applied for a shared high school with the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board in 2013, but that the application was put on hold after the French Catholic board launched its lawsuit against the ministry.
The French Catholic board’s lawsuit was put “on ice,” said Andre Blais, director of education at Conseil scolaire de district catholique Centre-Sud.
The board changed its mind when talks with the ministry materialized into additional student spaces at the school and a submitted federal funding request for a francophone community centre to be attached to the building, Blais added.
The new school is expected to be built at 16 Broughton Ave. The French Catholic board said it purchased the property, near Rymal Road East and Upper Gage Avenue, from the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board in 2015 and has since agreed on co-ownership with the French public board.
“We hope that this partnership will continue for many years to come,” said Jean-Francois L’Heureux, chair of the French public school board.
The joint school, which is expected to open in 2018, will see students from Hamilton, Burlington, Brantford, Haldimand, Norfolk, Guelph, Kitchener and Waterloo.
The only shared spaces will be ones with limited use, including classrooms for auto mechanics and woodworking, said Blais.