renovations

F.A.C.E. school’s new building lacks critical facilities

Local Journalism Initiative / The Suburban / September 25, 2025 / Dan Laxer, F.A.C.E. Elementary School, Geneviève Gueritaud, renovations

By Dan Laxer
The Suburban

The students of F.A.C.E. Elementary School, English and French sectors, started the year off in a new building at 4835 Christophe Colombe, with the French sector, overseen by the CSSDM, starting last week, and the English sector, overseen by the EMSB, this week.

In the spring the Quebec government decided that badly-needed renovations to the building that used to house the school — the old Montreal High School building on University Street — would prove too costly. The education ministry opted, instead, to separate the students, moving them to two different buildings (the high school students will actually stay in the building on University for the next few years until they move into the old Sun Youth/Baron Byng School building on St. Urbain).

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at about 9 a.m.

Parents of new students were excited to start the year. Some did have concerns about the tight one-way streets and the challenge of the morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up. For still others the morning and afternoon commute is longer and more difficult. But those whose children know the old building are somewhat disappointed, saying they’ll miss how the younger kids mixed with and learned from the older kids, and how well English and French blended in the old school. And there were kids who were excited to start school in the new building, but there were also those who expressed that they would miss the old building.

English Montreal School Board Chair Joe Ortona, who was on hand when the French sector started its year in the new building last week, spoke positively about the start to the year, but said he hopes the old building on University still has a future. In April Ortona and EMSB commissioner Maria Corsi had tabled a motion to save the school, calling on the CAQ government to honour its original commitment to the renovations.

At the time, Geneviève Gueritaud, a mom of F.A.C.E. students, told The Suburban that the new locations are inappropriate to the school’s arts-core education. They don’t have the facilities required, or the space, to accommodate its curriculum.

The new building also has no actual library. Instead, there are bookshelves in the corridor. There is also no cafeteria; students will be eating their lunch in the gym.

Proponents of the movement to save the old building on University say the movement is as strong as ever. They say it’s not just about saving the building, which has the facilities the school’s arts core curriculum requires, it’s also about preserving a community. n

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EMSB tables motion to save F.A.C.E. School

Local Journalism Initiative / The Suburban / August 16, 2025 / Dan Laxer, English Montreal School Board, F.A.C.E. School, renovations

By Dan Laxer
The Suburban

The English Montreal School Board has tabled a motion to help save F.A.C.E. School. The arts core education school serving both Anglophone and Francophone elementary and high school students is facing an existential crisis after the CAQ government went back on its promise to fund urgently-needed renovations, thereby keeping it open.

Instead, the education ministry announced last month that the planned renovations to the heritage building have become too costly. The work was originally estimated at $243 million. But the government says the actual costs have risen to $375 million. As reported in The Suburban last month, the government has opted, instead, to separate the elementary school and high school, and house them in two different locations – École Christophe Colomb and École Saint-Urbain.

With the school’s fate all but decided, the EMSB has tabled a motion at the April 29 Board of Commissioners, “calling on the government to keep F.A.C.E. school.” The motion was tabled by EMSB Chairman Joe Ortona and by Ward 4 commissioner Maria Corsi, who commented at the meeting that “the F.A.C.E School community, both on the CSSDM side and the EMSB side, was blindsided” by the ministry of education.”

Ortona agrees. “While we were well aware that the F.A.C.E. building is in need of significant renovations, the possibility of this building closing as a school permanently was never raised,” Ortona said, calling the ministry’s decision “disgraceful” and “shameful.”

“For the Minister to just announce this late on a Friday afternoon (April 4) left everyone with more questions than answers,” Ortona added. “The Minister has an obligation to consult, even in the French sector. It’s a disregard of our rights.”

The decision to withdraw funding for the renovations, Corsi said, essentially spells “the end of the highly successful and unique F.A.C.E. School cohabitation model and program.” Corsi points out that the government made its decision without consulting the communities that will be affected.

Corsi highlighted, as did Geneviève Gueritaud, a mom of F.A.C.E. students who spoke with The Suburban last month, that the locations proposed by the government are inappropriate to F.A.C.E. School’s arts-core education. They don’t have the facilities required, or the space, to accommodate its arts-core curriculum.

The motion is calling on the government to consider alternatives to the rehabilitation project that would “reduce costs to allow F.A.C.E. School to return to its current location without impacting the safety and security of students and staff.”

The motion also suggests as an alternative, if retaining the current F.A.C.E. location is rejected, the site of the former St. Raphael School at 8735 Henri Julien “for the construction of a new, state-of-the-art facility specifically designed for the arts, to house elementary and high school students of the CSSDM and the EMSB together.”

F.A.C.E. is the only school in the city that houses students from both the CSSDM and the EMSB. The CSSDM owns and manages the building.

If the government’s decision stands, Corsi argued, future students will no longer have access to the educational benefits and advantages of F.A.C.E. School’s cohabitation model. “It is incorrect and disingenuous,” she says, “for the minister to say that the F.A.C.E. program would remain the same in two separate buildings. So, it’s imperative, and the school community expects, and in fact demands, that the minster reconsider this decision, and that the costs of the F.A.C.E renovation project be reevaluated and that all options be considered to ensure the integrity of the program, and that the students remain together in one building.”

The motion was passed unanimously. n

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