A potential deal to build a new school in Vaudreuil- Dorion is causing some controversy between an English school board whose request for the land was rejected, and a French school board that may receive it.
The Lester B Pearson School Board said when it requested land in the off-island suburb to build a new school in 2008, the only space they were offered was beneath a major electrical tower.
"We were told that there's absolutely no land available except the one piece that they did offer us," said chairman Marcus Tabachnick.
With 500 students and running 150 students over capacity, the board's Pierre Elliott Trudeau elementary in the area is so overcrowded, closets have become makeshift offices.
"The population has grown exponentially all over off-island," said principal Colleen Galley.
With an urgent need for another English school, the board instead found land in nearby St. Lazare. Plans to finalize the deal are near completion.
Tabachnick said now that the deal is going through, the board has discovered a piece of land is being offered to the French Commission scolaire des Trois Lacs.
"That piece of property very specifically is one that we were looking at," he said. "For me it's nonsense."
Vaudreuil Mayor Guy Pilon denies the Lester B. Pearson board asked for the land specifically, and said the city couldn't accommodate the board's urgent need for that land because development could only begin there in 2012.
"They didn't plan anything," said Pilon.
Meantime, Galley said the overcrowding issue is a serious concern.
"It's unsettling not to know from year to year how we're going to accommodate the students," she said.
