St. Thomas High School will relocate into the building now occupied by Lindsay Place for the 2021-22 academic year.
Article content
The final day of classes at Lindsay Place High School are indeed final.
After 59 years, the Pointe-Claire school will cease to exist under its present name and familiar red and black school colours.
The last day of classes on Wednesday marked the end of a two-year process that will see the Lester B. Pearson School Board relocate nearby St. Thomas High School into the building occupied by Lindsay Place beginning in the 2021-22 academic year.
“It’s sad because it’s the end of an era,” said Ian Howarth, a retired teacher who organized an informal gathering of some 30 former teachers and students at the school.
Howarth said the gathering was intended as a tribute to the school, not a protest about its closing.
Principal Kerry-Ann Payette also joined the gathering. She said the school’s final year of existence was made more trying given the confines of the great pandemic.
“I think having a long year like we had, it was at the forefront of our minds, this being the final year. I think it’s really unfortunate in terms of COVID and what COVID has done to so many who’ve lost so much,” she said.
Advertisement
Article content
“So for us, our loss was the ability to celebrate.”
Although there was not a traditional graduation ceremony, Payette said the school held a full week of activities for its 2021 grads. “We tried to spoil them during that week within the safety of these times because we were still in the red zone.”
Faced with declining enrolment across the school board, Lester B. Pearson officials decided in 2019 to move St. Thomas into Lindsay Place given the board’s challenge of delivering a “viable and sustainable” school network for the next decade.
While St. Thomas was then operating at nearly full capacity with more than 1,200 students, Lindsay Place, with a capacity for 1,375 students, had seen its enrolment drop below 40 per cent with approximately 420 students. The final 2021 enrolment was just under 400 students.
Advertisement
Article content
Lindsay Place, which opened in 1962, is a superior facility, with two gymnasiums and a refurbished auditorium. By comparison, St. Thomas had only one gym and had to share an auditorium with the adjoined École Sécondaire Felix-Leclerc.
Nevertheless, Lindsay Place’s closing left the president of the school’s alumni foundation feeling melancholy.
“It’s sad because it’s the heart of the Pointe-Claire community,” said Peter Bolle, 57. “I’m happy to see it’s still going to be used but I know a lot of alumni are disappointed it’s closing.”
Howarth began his teaching career at John Rennie High School in the 1970s, but was later transferred to Lindsay Place, where he taught math and English from 1979 to 2001.
“It was a great school,” said Howarth, who quickly warmed to the school spirit at Lindsay Place which was known as “banjo high” because of the building’s circular-shaped wing facing Broadview Ave. (The current generation of students likened its shape to the Starship Entreprise of Star Trek fame.)
Advertisement
Article content
“The school motto became ‘Pride in the Place’,” said Howarth, who recalled many of the school’s exploits, both academic and athletic.
He mentioned the late Chuck Poirier’s efforts to maintain a football program at the public school. “Teachers like Chuck represented the heart of Lindsay Place,” said Howarth, who coached soccer.
Howarth also mentioned how LPHS became known for its excellent music program. Some of his favourite personal memories as a teacher came from year-end outdoor canoe trips to the Laurentians with students.
For Bolle, who wore his 1979 Eagles football jacket to Wednesday’s finale, the school always represented “inclusion.”
“It accepted everybody. It was not more black or white, it was an all-inclusive community,” said Bolle, who grew up in Dollard.
Advertisement
Article content
The closure of Lindsay Place follows the 2019 closure of Riverdale High School in Pierrefonds. Riverdale was transferred to the Commission scolaire Marguerite Bourgeoys by Quebec Education Minister Jean-François Roberge who used executive powers granted in the Education Act to deal with urgent overcrowding issues in the French system.
Howarth, 70, said it was a much different situation 50 or 60 years ago when many of these schools were being built in the West Island. “The English schools were packed to the rafters with students back when I started.”
He hopes that school officials will see fit to properly commemorate Judge Lindsay Place, whom the school was named after.
“It’s been called Lindsay Place since 1962 and will be for a long time after, I suspect,” Howarth said.
Lindsay Place High School in Pointe-Claire closes after 59 years - Montreal Gazette
Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment