MONTREAL — A Quebec bill that would eliminate school board elections has the province's struggling anglophone schools worried it will threaten minority language education rights.
Bill 86 would eliminate provincewide school board elections and replace each board's council of commissioners with a council made up of parents, school staff and community members.
The legislation, which was tabled in December, is intended to give more decision-making power to parents and schools and save money by eliminating school board elections, which traditionally get about a five per cent turnout rate in Quebec.
While some groups have welcomed the proposed increased role for parents, the legislation has faced fierce opposition from boards, which say it takes away democratic voting rights without doing anything to favour school success.
Some of the most vocal opponents are English school boards, which argue the legislation would threaten their constitutionally guaranteed rights to provide minority-language education.
Sec. 23 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right to publicly funded education to English and French linguistic minorities where numbers warrant, although there are stricter rules for access to English schools in Quebec.
"The real impact of Bill 86 isn't the demise of school boards, it's the demise of local governance," said Jennifer Maccarone, president of the Quebec English School Boards Association.
She argues the bill erodes local control by giving more power to the province's Education Department and takes away the voice of commissioners, who she says serve as a bridge among schools, municipalities and elected officials.
Her organization has said it will mount a constitutional challenge to the bill if it passes.
An association of francophone school boards has also come out against the bill out of concern similar legislation enacted elsewhere could affect minority French-language schools in other provinces.
"School trustees play a key role in ensuring greater control by French-language school boards outside Quebec over, among other things, how money is best spent to serve the needs of the francophone community, therefore ensuring that community thrives," wrote the organization's president, Robert Maddix.
In Quebec, English schools are not only a minority community, but a declining one.
In the past 25 years, enrolment has dropped from 250,000 students to 95,000 due mostly to Bill 101 — the 1977 law that limits access to English schooling.
Some eligible children — about 20,000 each year, according to Maccarone — are also sent to private school or into the French system, despite a higher graduation rate in the English system and better scores on French-language ministry exams.
This enrolment drop has left English schools facing difficult decisions on whether to close or merge half-empty schools.
The largest English school board in the province voted in December to close two schools and merge eight others as well as put some empty buildings up for sale.
One of those schools, Lakeside Academy, was given a one-year reprieve after a strong campaign by parents.
It has until December to come up with a plan to increase enrolment at the school, which is currently at 37 per cent capacity.
"We're looking at our services, we're looking at regulations, we're looking at growth and increased population, and we're looking at increasing revenue through rentals," said principal Kathleen O'Reilly.
The school has applied to become a community education centre, made plans to increase its robotics program and is marketing itself on the strength of its international baccalaureate program, which it offers to all students.
"We want them to know that we're here, we have those amazing programs and an amazing staff," she said.
The chair of the Lester B. Pearson school board, which includes Lakeside, says many English schools provide specialized programs and operate differently from their French counterparts.
Suanne Stein Day worries that Bill 86, if passed, would destabilize the system and have a long-term effect on student success.
"It's aiming for this one-size-fits-all approach, and that doesn't work," she said.
Quebec Education Minister Sebastien Proulx, who was appointed to the post in February, did not wish to comment on the proposed legislation while recently concluded public hearings were still ongoing.
A spokesperson said in an email the minister wanted to "take the exercise seriously in order to hear the speakers from all the groups affected by the bill."
