After public outcry, CSDM invited to discussions on school board reform

After slamming the Quebec government for excluding it from discussions on the proposed school board reform bill, the Commission Scolaire de Montréal (CSDM) will be invited to participate.

The hearings are scheduled to begin Nov. 4 and, as of Thursday, CSDM chair Catherine Harel-Bourdon is now on the slate to speak to the parliamentary committee that will be reviewing the proposed law.

The review is expected to last five days.

This news comes after Harel-Bourdon called it "absurd" that her French-language school board, the largest in the province, was not invited to weigh in on the plan to transform citizen-elected school boards into provincially managed service centres.

She lamented the exclusion with fellow commissioners at her side during a Wednesday news conference, chastising the government for failing to include a nearly 200-year-old school board in talks about the reforms.

The Quebec government had said the voices of most school boards in the province will be represented by the Quebec school board federation, known as the Fédération des commissions scolaires du Québec. 

Harel-Bourdon said that wasn't good enough as, even though the federation represents 58 school boards, it can't properly represent the specific needs of each region. 

Montreal has issues specific to being an urban centre which are different than rural Quebec, she said, and the CSDM plays a crucial role in helping immigrant students and their families learn French and integrate into Quebec society.

The representation of parents with immigrant backgrounds is a key element of how the CSDM operates.

Helping new immigrants has become "central to our mission, in the social and in the economic development of the city," the CSDM said in a statement.

Bill 40 was tabled on Oct. 1 and it includes exceptions for the province's English-language community.

The bill would turn school boards into "service centres" run by a 16-person board of directors composed of parents, teachers and other members of the community.

In the French-language system, those centres will be appointed, not elected. 

Harel-Bourdon said the five days scheduled to review Bill 40 isn't long enough to discuss the fate of school boards.

The CSDM was founded in 1846, oversees 191 schools, employs some 17,000 people and services more than 114,000 students.

Quebec currently has 72 school boards: 60 French, nine English and three with special status.