Lakeside Academy, Riverview parents, students have high hopes for schools' survival

Parents of students at Lachine's Lakeside Academy and Riverview Elementary School in Verdun are beginning the next phase of work to save their schools, after school board commissioners voted Monday to give those schools a one-year reprieve.

The Lester B. Pearson school board commissioners voted Monday evening to delay the closure of Lakeside Academy and postpone the merger of Riverview into Verdun Elementary School.

• Lakeside Academy closure, Riverview merger put on hold by LBPSB
• ​Lakeside Academy parents scrambling to find ways to avoid Lachine school's closure
• Lakeside Academy closure: Commissioner offers hope of reprieve

However, now the communities that rallied together have to find a way to keep their schools from closing in 2017.

Grade 10 student Ryha Anglade Larose said she's glad that she will be able to attend her high school graduation at Lakeside.

She believes that if the school can stay open for an extra year, it will ultimately be saved.

"It shows that we actually have that kind of power to stop something," said Anglade Larose. "It shows us that we are powerful people in our community."

Boosting enrolment

Kathleen Blagrave, who is on the governing board at Riverview, says the task now is to boost enrolment to keep the schools alive.

"We're going to form a committee to talk about the next steps and what we're going to do," Blagrave said. "We're going to have to hold our municipal politicians and our federal politicians to the promises that they made."

"And we're going to have to go after our provincial MNAs as well."

Karen Bleakley, a parent of a student at Lakeside Academy and a member of that school's governing board, said she's certain the school will be able to stay open.

She told CBC Montreal's Daybreak that Lakeside only needs 75 more students to reach the school board's target.

"They are telling us they need about a critical mass of 500 students," Bleakley said. "We think it is fairly realistic."

'The fight has just begun'

Suanne Stein Day, the school board's chairwoman, told CBC Montreal's Daybreak that while the one-year reprieve has been granted, there are still significant challenges ahead.

"We still have too many schools for the number of people that we have," Stein Day said.

"The English-eligible students are leaving the province, and the ones that are coming in to replace them are not allowed to go to our schools. This is a basic fact of living in Quebec today."

Stein Day said that she was delighted that the communities in Verdun and Lachine came together to save their schools, but now they face a real test.

"The fight has just begun."