'The ship has turned': Parents at Villa Sainte-Marcelline in Westmount hopeful for its future
Parents of children at the Villa Sainte-Marcelline in Westmount are feeling hopeful after learning the board of directors of the private girls school unanimously voted against its closing this week.
Following news that the congregation of nuns who own the building wouldn't be renewing the Montreal French-language school's lease next year, the board of directors held a vote on Thursday night.
Nina Gonzalez Bychkova, who's daughter attends Grade 5 at the school, says the tone from the congregation has also changed since it shared its decision with the school's administration earlier this month.
The congregation now says it is committed to finding solutions to ensure students can remain at the school for the 2023-2024 school year, despite previously saying there were safety concerns in the aging building.
"It's a message of hope that, as a parent, already makes me feel more confident," Gonzalez Bychkova said Saturday.
"That message that was sent to us, we saw that in a week it completely changed directions. The ship has turned and the winds have turned, we're sailing toward a solution."
Initially the congregation said it was left with no other choice but to not renew the school's lease.
"Faced with building safety issues and the inability to pay or raise the necessary funds to finance the work to be done, the Congregation of the Nuns of Sainte-Marcelline was faced with the moral obligation to make the painful decision to send Ville Sainte-Marcelline a notice of non-renewal of their lease," their previous statement read.
But in a letter to parents sent Friday, the school's administration assured parents the school remains a safe place for the students to study. What structural problems plague the school remains unknown.
The Soeurs de Sainte-Marcelline founded the school in Westmount in 1959, which today provides pre-school, elementary and high school education to its roughly 600 students.
The congregation originates from Italy, where the first of such schools was first founded in Milan in 1838.
Many of the parents of children at the school are alumni themselves, and have been fundraising and exploring options for other buildings in the hope of saving the school ever since the announcement.
"We have been working relentlessly now for nine days," Gonzalez Bychkova said.
