MORRISBURG – The Conseil scolaire de district catholique de l’Est ontarien – the French Catholic school board that serves Eastern Ontario, including Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry and Prescott-Russell wants to build a new elementary school in Winchester to serve families in the area who qualify for French-language Catholic education.
CSDCEO has applied to the Ministry of Education for a new kindergarten to Grade 6 school in Winchester, and last week board officials were at the Joel Steele Arena’s Sam Ault Community Centre to discuss their plan with interested community members. About two dozen people attended the initial presentation.
Documentation provided at the meeting said that according to Statistics Canada census data (2021) 523 children in North Dundas are entitled to French-language education and although North Dundas is part of the CSDCEO territory, the school board currently has no French-language schools for children there or in South Dundas. South Dundas has about half of the Francophone population of North Dundas.
The process of building a new school will take years, but board officials were happy with the interest they saw at last week’s meeting as they embarked upon the beginning of the process.
They are so early in the process that the location is not yet known as they must first purchase land for the new school. A map proposing the school’s attendance area encompasses all of North and South Dundas.
This would be the board’s westernmost school. The board’s 32 existing schools include seven high schools.
Their neighbouring board, Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-est (CECCE), are building a permanent French Catholic school in Kemptville, with the potential of partnering with that municipality to pursue the feasibility of establishing a multi-recreational sports dome at the Kemptville Campus.
This board spoke about how they are amenable to pursuing similar partnerships, depending on the will of their school community. Once plans are in place, it takes about three years to build a school. This is a process the board would rather see started sooner than later. They told the group assembled that they have already been working on this file for a year.
North Dundas Jacques Heroux said that while they have been working on this file for sometime, nothing is written in concrete and everything is possible.
“We have done our homework,” he said, adding that a new school that will be a real community hub is justified in this area. “Our vision is grandiose. We have beautiful projects and beautiful ideas, but it will be what you want for your school.”
Further consultations are planned.
The last school construction to take place in North Dundas was the 2022-23 expansion of Winchester Public School operated by the English-Public school board.
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