Joel Ceausu – The Suburban LJI Reporter
It’s an understatement to say parents are getting weary: strike days, snow days, no buses, equipment breakdowns, and all when most thought their children’s education being compromised was in the rearview pandemic mirror. Not so, especially for the French public network, whose teachers have been on strike for weeks, and expected to continue for several more, as well as the English sector which joins them again Friday through next week.
That means a lot of kids not being educated, and parents scrambling for options. Offers are popping up all over social media for daycare services, outings, and tutoring, including many teachers currently on strike offering educational services for children forced to stay home.
One CDN-NDG organization that has been punching above its weight on the learning front for more than a decade has stepped in to help bridge this gap for many of those kids and their parents, especially from the most vulnerable communities.
Valiquette Academy on Van Horne near Victoria is bustling with some 80 kids aged 4 to 12 this week, catching up and moving forward in French, English, math, geography, study aids, chess and more. The educational nonprofit founded by Jay Valiquette is known for its summer camps with some 1,600 kids participating, coding courses, after- school programs, winter camps and other various activities throughout the year.
Staffed by professional educators, college students, high school students, grads of Valiquette summer camp programs, and other volunteers, they’ve all made the hard crash of the labour disruption much softer for area kids. When schools began shuttering last month during the public sector strikes, dozens of parents called in desperation. “We quickly got into action,” said Valiquette. “We are already very involved in the community and this is a very vulnerable, underprivileged group. A third are single moms, and we employ as many kids as we can from the neighborhood to help out, because they’re actually helping support their parents financially.”
Open from 7 a.m — 5:45 p.m., the Academy gives kids from underprivileged backgrounds, new immigrant families, families who are under-represented, a supplementary education. “We take everybody.” There is a cost, about $32 a day, and the Academy is a registered Canadian charity and actively seeks donations in terms of volunteer hours, laptop computers, and of course financial help to keep it all going the way he has for almost 12 years. Last year the Academy gave 50 free computers to children of parents who cannot afford them.
Valiquette’s first fundraising effort was six months ago, he says, until now it’s all been out of pocket and through volunteers, although he was able to secure help through the Canada Summer Jobs program three years ago. The academy became a non-profit in 2017-2018 and is an official partner with the city of Montreal, but is still stymied in acquiring assistance from the borough, which he says has been a laborious task due to application requirements. “We wanted to give our kids swimming lessons (at the nearby Côte-des-Neiges sports centre) but we’re not able to do it at this time.”
But at the root of it is learning: whether to swim, speak French, do math, or navigate a world map. “If you need a really wonderful place to send your kids during the strikes,” he pledges, “we are here for you. I promise your child will learn more in a week than they might do in two weeks in school.”
For more information visit https://valiquette.org/en n