Parents and school officials met on Thursday to night to discuss what to do about overcrowding in an English school.
Montreal West’s Edinburgh Elementary School is meant to be home to 330 students but there are currently 400 enrolled.
The school has become so crowded that some students are being tutored in a teachers' lounge due to a shortage of classroom space.
“Our students often do tutoring in the staff lounge, our music room is on the stage of the gym at the same time that gym time is happening,” said Edinburgh Elementary School Governing Board Chair Michael Rodger. “Our science room is a cart that our science teacher pushes from classroom to classroom.”
During Thursday’s meeting, several options were presented. One is to move the youngest students to an underused school two kilometres away, but some parents objected, saying it would split siblings up.
A second option is to maintain the status quo, even as 30 English-speaking families were denied enrollment due to lack of space this year.
A third option is to add modular, temporary classrooms next to the existing building. A petition supporting that option has garnered 400 signatures.
“When you look at the benefits the modular classrooms would bring in terms of allowing more children entry from the local community, in terms of freeing up our classrooms for a science class, a music class, an art class, they make more sense than any other option on the table,” said parent Meg Catalano.
Present at the meeting were the English Montreal School Board’s commissioner for the area and EMSB Vice-Chair Joe Ortona, who said the school board is keeping an open mind on how to solve the problem.
“Let me reassure the parents now, there’s no take it or leave it scenario,” he said. “We are going to be open to all proposals and we’re going to seriously consider all of the proposals, but in the end, there is a decision and it’s going to be the decision we feel is the best one for everybody.”
The EMSB is scheduled to vote on the issue on Feb. 20.
