EDUCATION French public schools win equal funds By Pat Bell Citizen education writer Elementary and secondary students in Ottawa-Carleton French public schools will finally get the same financial backing as students at the region's English public school boards. A five-year dispute was resolved Wednesday in an agreement that acknowledged the province has been underfunding the public sector of the Ottawa-Carleton French-language School Board since it was established in 1989. It has about 5,600 students. The province will pay $12 million retroactively for the period 1989 to 1993 and increase its annual grant to keep the public sector in line with neighboring boards. The sector will receive $6.4 million for its 1994 operating budget, $3 million more than it expected. Despite the funding increase there will be no immediate difference in the elementary and secondary schools, said Bernard Bareilhe, president of the council of parent advisory groups at the sector's 14 schools. The agreement between the education ministry and the sector requires the $12 million to be used to reduce a debt that stands at about $24 million. Proceeds from the sale of two school buildings Belcourt on Church Street and Cartier on Donald Street and a 15-year debenture will be used to cover the balance. Students at the French board's public sector were in schools run by the Ottawa Board of Education and the Carleton Board of Education until 1989 when the province established the French-language mnabrt LE A 1 ft 1 A xi' a 1 ft 'wSJ. It i File photo FIGHTING MAD: Students of Cartier High School and Le Carrefour, along with officials of the French language school board protest the sale of the school earlier this month school board with a Catholic and public sector. This year the province introduced legislation to make each sector an autonomous school board. "We were assured (in 1988) that we could continue to offer the same services to our students that they had been receiving in their former boards," sector chairman Denis Chartrand said Wednesday. "But within the first year, we had a $2 million deficit. In June 1991, the sector sued the province for underfunding our schools. In response, the province put us under official supervision in September of that year. "Since then there have been out-of-court negotiations and today's agreement eliminates the legal challenge. It makes clear that whatever the OBE and CBE spend on their students affects the grants we get," Chartrand said. The agreement also sets out a schedule for ending the provincial trusteeship of the debt-ridden sec tor and withdrawing official supervisor Rosaire Leger after three consecutive years of balanced budgets, beginning in 1995. The province has agreed to pay for moving vocational students from Ecole secondaire publique Cartier to another (as yet unnamed) location, to pay all costs of completing the new Charlebois school site on Smyth Road and to make a new French public elementary school in Orleans a priority. Adult students left stranded, officials say Citizen staff An increase in provincial funding for French-language education in Ottawa strands 800 adult students, representatives say. The funding agreement requires the public sector of the Ottawa-Carleton French-language School Board to sell Cartier school on Donald Street, which houses the adult students' school, Le Carrefour. "Le Carrefour is the black mark," sector chairman Denis Chartrand said Wednesday. "The province wouldn't agree to anything about the adult students and they just said if we didnt like it, there would be no agreement at all." "But there will be classes for Carrefour students somehow, somewhere. As trustees, we will start making some decisions immediately." Adult students rallied outside MPP Evelyn Gigantes's office Friday to draw attention to the loss of their school. About 70 per cent of the students are new to Canada and range in age from 19 to 80. Le Carrefour is to close in June and the sector has suggested dispersing the adult students among several locations. "We're happy with what the province has done so far. But we're not completely pleased yet," said Carrefour student Martine Pavia, 19. "We don't want classes scattered in different locations throughout the region. We think without the classroom atmosphere we have now that people will become discouraged and drop off."
