By Valencia Grant
Centretown will keep its alternate schooling program even if it is forced to move again for the second time in two years, says a school board trustee.
Joan Spice, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board trustee responsible for the program in the McNabb public school building, says board members want the school to stay in Centretown.
That’s the preference expressed by superintendent of alternate schools John Brennan, and the teachers and students of the Richard Pfaff Secondary Alternate Program,Spice says.
The program will be forced to move out of the McNabb public school building if the Ottawa-Carleton Catholic School Board decides to relocate St. Anthony’s elementary school from Booth Street to McNabb’s Percy Street location by this September.
Alternate school programs are for students who do not perform well in a traditional high school setting.
A year and a half ago, the public school board told the alternate school and the programs that fall under it, Reality Check and First Place, they had to move from the old Ottawa Technical high school on Albert Street since they were the only programs in the large building.
Tom Benke, program co-ordinator of the alternate program, has resigned himself to leaving 160 Percy St., just a little less than two years after moving there.
He says when the building was put up for disposal in December, the board’s approach was, “Someone’s interested in the building. You’re moving!” Benke says he assumes he and his staff will “start packing in June.
“The way things are going right now, we’re leaving. The bottom line is we’re moving,” says Benke, referring to public school board meetings to find a new location for the alternate programs because St. Anthony’s might move into their building.
The public school board will meet on April 10 to decide the fate of the alternate programs. Around the same time, the Ottawa-Carleton Catholic School Board plans to make its decision about relocating St. Anthony’s school..
Benke says he’s happy the program will stay in Centretown and insists the current McNabb building is an ideal location.
He adds there aren’t many other location choices besides Centretown.
If the school leaves Centretown, it would possibly overlap with other alternate schools in Ottawa that serve different areas.
He says the alternate program would have to move if St. Anthony’s decides to relocate Hyacinth
Haddad, the public school board’s communications co-ordinator, says McNabb was not supposed to be a permanent location for the alternate programs.
“McNabb was an elementary school. It was not designed as a secondary school,” she says.
Heather Myles, of the First Place Alternate Program, says she likes the environment at the school.
The 14-year-old has commuted from Kanata to the alternate school program, where the majority of the students are from Centretown.
As a part of the alternate school program mandate, which is to foster a cozy and relaxed atmosphere for students, Myles and her peers are allowed to call their teachers by their first names. They are also encouraged to work on class exercises in groups.
“I actually like it because it’s so relaxed. It’s so free. You don’t feel peer pressure. You feel free to be your own person.
“This is our school. They (the media) said that it was closed and it was an abandoned building. In fact, there are programs here that want to stay and don’t want to move.”