One week before the summer vacation, the Félix-Antoine school, which helps dropouts obtain their high school diploma, still does not know if it will be able to reopen at the next school year, due to a lack of funding from Quebec. A story that is repeating itself for this small school, and which comes at a time when we learn that the dropout rate has increased during the pandemic.
“This is starting to get laughable. »
Vanessa Lemire, director of the Félix-Antoine school, describes the untenable situation in which her school finds itself this year, once again.
For almost 30 years, this private school has welcomed adults who come to complete their secondary education. It is supported at arm’s length by a handful of employees and numerous volunteers, including teachers, but must fight regularly to ensure its survival.
For the past five years, the school has been funded by the Ministry of Education under the Education Partners Support Program. He was given the maximum $325,000 a year.
Next year, this school is asking for $475,000 to accommodate around sixty students in its Ahuntsic premises and pay certain volunteers to ensure greater staff stability. But the answer is still awaited.
“The analysis is underway,” the Ministry of Education writes to us.
“That’s what we’re no longer capable of: the stress, not knowing what’s happening every year,” says Ms. Lemire, a remedial teacher who was a volunteer for many years before becoming a director.
However, explains the director, the Ministry of Education does not know in which box to put this atypical school to ensure its survival.
This week, Education Minister Bernard Drainville’s office called the rise in school dropouts, which increased by 2.5 percentage points during the pandemic, “worrying.” In 2021-2022, the dropout rate in Quebec was 16.3%.
“They’re talking about school dropouts everywhere these days. If we want to solve this, it starts here,” says Yan Belval. His daughter Jessy, 24, has just spent more than five years at this school.
She says that before setting foot at Félix-Antoine, she saw school “as a burden,” particularly because of her anxiety problems, but also because she was a victim of bullying.
On Thursday, she shed tears alongside her parents, just as moved as she was: their older daughter is graduating from high school this month.
Even at this school, she “almost dropped out several times.” This was without counting Mélanie Chartrand, a worker who herself attended the establishment and who continued her studies until she had a university degree in psychosocial intervention.
With her diploma in hand, the young woman feels “liberated from a weight”.
The Félix-Antoine school is often the end of the road for students who have had a busy career and who have often given up.
Zach Chamberland, 21, describes a high school career where he “never knew regularity.” He was in a special education group, behavioral disorder classes, and took training to become a janitor.
It’s done. “They really believed in me,” he says of the Félix-Antoine team, which helped him finish secondary 4 and secondary 5 in one year.
Next fall, he will be a student in criminology intervention techniques at Ahuntsic College. “I think I would be a good speaker,” he says.
At 33, Adrian Chavez is also heading to CEGEP next year, after four years at this school. “What sets this school apart from others is the teachers,” he says. “They have a passion for teaching. I achieved what I thought I had given up on,” he adds.
The director of the Félix-Antoine school has no intention of giving up, either.
“We have people here who can’t go anywhere else,” says Ms. Lemire.
