By Dan Laxer
The Suburban
Centennial Academy has announced that it will stay open and continue to operate for the next school year and beyond.
Last April The Suburban reported that the private high school in the west end of downtown was facing financial issues that put its future in jeopardy. But community support, along with a short-term commitment from the Quebec government, has turned things around.
Centennial has been around since 1969, educating students with learning challenges, ADHD, autism, anxiety, and other issues. in early June the school highlighted an initiative led by the Léger Family Foundation, with the support of the Molson Foundation, for helping secure the school’s future.
Both are family foundations that are well-known to Montrealers. Jean-Pierre Léger and his daughter, Amélie, are the vice-president and president of the Léger Family Foundation. Jean-Pierre’s parents, Hélène and René, were the founders of the St. Hubert rotisseries chicken restaurant chain. The foundation’s mission is to help vulnerable people in the community. The Molson Foundation, founded in 1958, similarly works toward the betterment of community, focusing on education, health, and the arts and humanities.
“By mobilizing their philanthropic networks,” the school said, “these two foundations have rallied, and continue to bring together, other foundations in support of Centennial Academy’s mission.”
It added “the school’s survival depends on the commitment of an entire community: donors, families, partners, employees, and volunteers have joined forces in recent months to defend a school they consider essential for their children.”
Head of School Angela Burgos says “for more than 50 years, Centennial Academy has been transforming the lives of students with diverse learning profiles. We are proud to be able to continue this vital mission thanks to the generosity and trust of our partners.”
Last spring the school was the subject of debate in the National Assembly. At the time, Liberal MNA Madwa-Nika Cadet warned that the school might not have had made it through the summer. Education Minister Bernard Drainville said that should the school come up with a recovery plan the government would provide emergency funding. Burgos confirmed to The Suburban that, true to his word, the minister did indeed issue emergency funding of $900,000, but just for the coming year. That amount is the equivalent of what the French stream would get annually if it received regular funding. Centennial had originally been an English institution, but added a French stream in 2016, and is now evenly split linguistically. But the school only gets government funding for one – the Anglo side – due to a government freeze on private school funding.
Burgos says they will continue lobbying to see that the French stream receives the same funding as the English stream – $6,000 per student. Centennial is not two separate schools, she says, it is one school with an English and a French stream. “It’s important, long-term, that we have this sense of justice, and know that the French sector is treated (the same) as the English sector is.”
The school confirms that there are still some spaces available for the coming school year. n