Students and staff at the Mackay Centre School, which serves English students with disabilities, will be moving into a bigger, brighter and better building in a few years.
The school is currently located on Decarie Blvd but staff say the building is old, not up to date and too small.
Rather than renovate, they decided it would be easier and likely cheaper to build a new facility. The provincial government agreed, and will invest more than $20 million into the project.
The English Montreal School Board owns a piece of land on Terrebonne St. at the corner of Madison Ave., and that's where the new Mackay Centre will go.
Joanne Charron is on the school’s governing board. Her son has cerebral palsy and he learned to communicate at the Mackay Centre using a machine similar to what Stephen Hawking uses.
“My son was 8-years-old the first time I actually heard him speak, although electronically. They sent him home one day with this device and I hooked him up and he started using his head because he can't use his hands, frantically banging on switches to get the message out. The first words I ever heard my son tell me are ‘I love you, mom.’”
The new school is expected to open in 2018 and will be able to accommodate more students.
