Parents want to save a music project at school

Dominique Scali

Tuesday, 30 January 2018 22:01

UPDATE
Tuesday, 30 January 2018 22:01

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Parents of the neighbourhood of Rosemont in Montreal is upset that the lack of space in their school and too many students force the disappearance of the class of music.

The 9 year old daughter Marie-Hélène Boisvert has difficulty concentrating. But thanks to the musical project of the école Madeleine-de-Verchères, she can spend an hour and a half on the piano.

“The musical project is essential to the life of our school […] The children really like it really “, abounds Marie-Andrée Hope, mother of two children of 5 and 8 years old.

Several parents gathered Tuesday to rally in order to save the local music of this school, which contains around a hundred instruments, even if the institution does not have musical vocation.

“Drums, guitars, chinese gong. It is far [just] the xylophone and the recorder ” shows-t-it.

Prof dedicated

Music lessons are given by the musician Pierre Hurtubise, who is so devoted to you that students participate over the lunch hour.

“He tries really in order that each student may be put under the spotlight,” said Ms. Boisvert.

Each year, a year end show high-quality is mounted, including orchestrations.

“You can’t believe that this is a primary school that plays in front of you,” said Ms. Boisvert.

However, the local which helps to make this project alive and risk being transformed in the classroom, as the school is at 112 % capacity, ” explains Catherine Harel Bourdon, president of the Commission scolaire de Montréal (CSDM).

“We will shoot themselves in the foot “

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Catherine Harel Bourdon
The president of the CSDM

For the moment, the proposed solution is to install the units were prefabricated on the ground of the school to add classes, says the president. The Journal revealed precisely on Friday that the CSDM had launched a call for tenders for a hundred of these units.

But several factors are uncertain. The government funding will it be enough to get all the desired units ? The City will grant the permits necessary ? What will be the exact number of pupils in the district next year ? Here are the questions posed by Ms. Bourdon.

“We will shoot themselves in the foot [by eliminating] this project. It adds to the colour of the school, it stimulates the young people, ” said Jean-François Gosselin, independent curator, who sees it as a factor of student retention.