Parents at Lakeside Academy in Lachine are demanding their school stay open.
The Lester B. Pearson School Board is planning to close the high school at the end of this year, and at a meeting Tuesday night, parents grilled school board commissioners about why would they vote to close a high school that's so appreciated and has a 96 per cent graduation rate.
Tina Nicholas' daughter Meghan has dyslexia and struggled in elementary school. But at Lakeside's specialized reach program, things turned around.
“She's an honour student in this program and every day she wakes up and she is eager to come to school,” Nicholas said. She worries what will happen to Meghan in another school.
Lakeside Academy has just 425 students, less than half its capacity. At the meeting, school board chair Suanne Stein Day repeated they don’t have the bodies to operate a high school.
Students will have to be bussed to either Lindsay Place High or LaSalle Community Comprehensive High School.
Laurie Letourneau said that will be harsh on students like her son, who is in Grade 10.
"It's my son's graduating year next year and it's going to be with people he won't even know," she said.
Many at the meeting blamed the government for the closure; Quebec language laws mean there are fewer and fewer students who can attend English schools, so schools like Lakeside struggle to survive.
"They want to take down all the English schools and they want to make them all French, that's what i'm seeing," said Nicholas.
Maya Vodanovic, borough councillor for Lachine, is among the parents and teachers hoping school board commissioners will change their minds.
"I'm a municipal politician that needs to have a good high school in its municipality," said Vodanovic.
The final decision will be made in three weeks.
