Author: Kasey
Cartwright (---.qc.sympatico.ca)
Date: 10-25-02
00:16
Laura,
As an employee & parent at RVR, and a
member of the Governing Board, I would like to respond to your
posting regarding RVR's closure, yes, we are moving to a temporary
facility in Longueuil, and yes, we will have to bus the kids to
Lemoyne d'Ibreville for gym, unfortunately, we have no choice. The
building is actually a school, it is owned by Marie Victorin School
Board, and as with most school boards, they keep one school empty,
to be used when there is a problem in another school in that board,
they have kindly agreed to let us use it from January to June. Our
graduation ceremony will most probably be at Champlain, this is not
a 100% fact, but it looks that way.
For your information,
Riverside School Board (our board/the English Board) does not own
RVR, we lost it when Linguistic School Boards came into effect in, I
believe 1998. Since then, we have rented 550 student spaces in the
building. Macdonald Cartier is co-owned by both our board and the
French board. Our Board and the Council of Commissioners, agreed to
an exchange of buildings, with the outcome being that Riverside
would then own the Macdonald Cartier building.
We have to
move out because there are major renovations, or I should say
demolition being done in order to make the school ready for the
International School kids to come in September 2003. We have been
fighting, we've done everything humanly possible but to no avail.
When we asked for $12,000,000.00 to build a new school in the West
End (Candiac, Delson or somewhere like that) we were refused but the
same Government can give $10,000,000.00 to the French Board to
basically
re-build RVR. I could go on, but you get the picture.
When we merge with Cartier, we will form a new school, new name, new
colours etc. It will be a mega-school, are we happy? NO, but we have
to make the best of a bad situation, and make it as easy a
transition as possible the kids.
Regarding the walk-out, it
was wonderful!!! The kids did it all on their own, called the media
and held a peaceful walk out. Unfortunately, to no avail, but they
got their point across. Our students are truly amazing! The bottom
line though, is money, and politics, and as you know, we can't fight
that.
Keep your eyes on this site, we will be announcing a
huge bash, very soon, I'm just waiting for the final go ahead, rest
assured, it will be big. We want everyone who ever went to RVR to
show up. It'll be a bring your own booze party, we'll auction off
memorabilia, and we're only asking for a small donation of $5.00 per
person, which will help defray the cost of the band, which will be
EARTHQUAKE, with alumni Paul Gagné. You can also call me at RVR for
informaiton anytime.
That's it for now, I just wanted to give
you a clearer picture of what's been happening at RVR for the past
year.
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