Secondary 4 and 5 students at the Plateau de La Malbaie school, enrolled in mathematics and enriched sciences, will be officially prohibited from participating in sports and cultural concentration programs from next year.
During a long meeting held Monday evening in the library of the Plateau de La Malbaie school, the governing board of the secondary school finally decided and voted in favor of this proposal which had aroused a wave of indignation in the population for a week. The vote was extremely close with nine members voting in favor and eight against.
In order to object to the latter, around a hundred parents and students crowded the library of the Plateau school on Monday evening. Initially, a 30-minute question period was planned but it had to be extended due to the large number of speakers who wanted to make their point.
“Can we ask our young people to make a choice about their future when their concern is the present moment? », questioned Julie Bouchard, mother of a secondary 4 student, according to CIHO FM radio in Charlevoix.
Moreover, according to the Charlevoisien, the president of the establishment board, Isabelle Bolduc, resigned following this decision, due to a “conflict of values”.
Choosing between sport and school
In other words, with this resolution, students registered in enriched science and mathematics programs will have to make the following choice: continue their studies in an enriched program, necessary to enter several post-secondary programs, or continue to do sport.
Mélissa Bouchard’s son will have to experience this dilemma if the proposal is accepted.
“In the spring, my son will be 14 years old. At this age, he will be asked to choose between whether he wants to spend his time studying or whether he wants to have fun with his friends who will not take strong math. He always wanted to take his maths hard but, now, he is questioning,” the mother explained to the Journal on Monday, a few hours before the decisive meeting.
Necessary for many young people
Mme Bouchard also assures one thing: this proposal would outrage her even if she did not have a son in the process of having to make this choice. And the reason is simple: his eldest son was able to participate in a sports concentration program during his time at the Plateau school and the positive consequences were enormous.
“It was a motivation for him. He needed it. The dropout rate is higher among young boys and I don’t understand why we want to take that away from them,” she added.
Moreover, a petition called Let’s maintain the concentrations for secondary 4-5 students in math-sciences was launched on January 7. As of Monday evening, it had received nearly 1,200 signatures.
