School board reform was spark for new combined English high school
Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter
peterblack@qctonline.com
The green light for the construction of a new English secondary school from Education Minister Bernard Drainville, to quote Winston Churchill, marks “the end of the beginning” of a journey that dates back nearly 30 years.
Quoting Churchill may be appropriate in that he was British prime minister in 1941, when Quebec High School first opened its doors. St. Patrick’s High School, which had its start in the Old City in 1843, has been in its current building since 1918, with an expansion in 1957.
The basic motivation for the project to ditch the two aging schools located within a few blocks of each other in the Montcalm district – once the heart of a thriving anglophone community – dates back to 1997, when confessional school boards were replaced with language-based boards.
St. Patrick’s, previously with the Catholic school system, became a non-denominational school, though keeping some of its religious heritage, under the newly created Central Québec School Board (CQSB).
While there were proposals to integrate or rationalize programs between the two schools, they were inevitably foiled by the then-passionate rivalry between the partisans of the St. Pat’s Fighting Irish and the Quebec High School (QHS) Blazers.
That changed in early 2017, when frustrated parents from both schools got together and asked the question, “Where do you see our high schools in 50 years?”
Led by St. Pat’s rep Ian O’Gallagher and Jean-Luc Trahan from QHS, the parents told the board the schools were ready to put aside their rivalry to gain a modern school that could compete for students with the schools in the well- resourced French system.
A presentation the group prepared to make the case for a new school cited examples of how much more the modern high schools in the French system could offer students compared to the antiquated English schools.
A bottom-line concern was that many parents whose children attended English elementary schools were choosing to send them to French high schools because of the higher- quality facilities and programs.
The presentation said, “Between Grade 6 and Secondary I, the CQSB loses 10 to 20 per cent of eligible students to French private and public schools.”
Stephen Burke, then chair of the CQSB council of commissioners, seized the initiative to push forward what was called The Project. The board got lucky in that, by sheer serendipity, the minister of education at the time was Liberal Sébastien Proulx, in whose Jean-Talon riding the new school would be built.
Not only did Proulx grasp the need for a new English high school, he signed off on a brand new English elementary school in Lévis, which opened last year – he was invited to the ribbon-cutting. That move made the St. Vincent property on Avenue Wolfe available for the new high school.
Proulx stepped down in 2019 and Joëlle Boutin won the rid- ing in a byelection for the Coalition Avenir Québec. Boutin herself stepped down in 2023, and the riding is now held by Pascal Paradis of the Parti Québécois.
Current CQSB chairperson Jean Robert, who succeeded Burke last fall, said the strong support from the city’s English- speaking community was an important factor in moving the project forward. A series of consultations in the fall of 2022 bolstered the board’s belief in the new school.
Razvan Petre, the president of Voice of English-speaking Québec (VEQ), said in an email to the QCT: “We are extremely happy to learn that the project has finally received the green light to commence the bidding process. This is a very exciting project for our youth and our community. There is no doubt that this modern new building will contribute to our community’s vitality.”
If all goes according to plan and construction can be completed in the anticipated two years, the new school – yet to be named – would welcome the first students in fall 2028.
That means students enter- ing Secondary I at St. Pat’s and QHS this September would begin their Secondary IV at a brand-new, state-of-the-art English high school, as classmates, not rivals.