Students are not all equal when it comes to the heat in Quebec, while several public schools provide more air conditioning in the principal’s offices, private schools go against the grain and prioritize classroom comfort.
“The public thinks about the well-being of the director and the private sector is the opposite, it makes no sense! It makes you want to go to the private sector!” says a teacher from Lanaudière, who is not authorized to speak to the media, on condition of anonymity.
Of the hundred private schools and school service centers that responded to our questions, 60% of public schools prioritize the air conditioning of administration offices compared to only 5% in the private sector.
In return, 17% of public schools prioritize classroom air conditioning compared to 57% for private schools.
At the École Trilingue Vision St-Augustin, near Quebec, for example, the classes have been air-conditioned for five years, but not the management offices. Like the other private establishments which responded to our questionnaire, the unsubsidized school denies having made this choice because it has the “means”. “The income comes 100% from the parents. So, we manage the budget rigorously. […] None of the management and administration offices are air-conditioned. It must be said that we do not have to entertain and teach 25 children, aged from 4 to 12 years old,” explains general director Marie-Claude Bussières.
Same story at the François-Bourrin private secondary school in Quebec. While the general director’s office is not air-conditioned, 75% of the classes are. “We are non-profit organizations, money does not go out the window […] for the most part, we are not able to offer air conditioning to everyone, it’s really choices that we make,” explains CEO Jean-David Meunier.
Even if many people like to have more leeway than public schools which must report to a school service center, for them, it is a question of priority. “We have to show creativity and planning, we borrow from the bank to be able to invest in our buildings, it is certain that we prioritize the students and we have the flexibility to do so,” adds the president of the Federation of establishments private education institutions (FEEP), David Bowles.
Aging schools, an argument?
After telling the story last week of a mother from Mont-Tremblant who financed 42 air conditioners for her children’s elementary school, Minister of Education Bernard Drainville asked establishments to show flexibility. “But what do you want? The average date of construction of our schools in Quebec is 1967,” he also indicated.
According to a FEEP survey, more than half of private schools occupy buildings that are more than 70 years old. Several are heritage or religious buildings.
The private Sainte-Marcelline college in Montreal, itself founded in 1967, is “almost entirely air-conditioned. Only our two gymnasiums are not [ils ont seulement la ventilation]”, according to the general director, Sister Teresa Belgiojoso.
The general director of the Collège de Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, Stéphane Lemelin, explains that he has launched a fundraising campaign to install air conditioners. “Air-conditioning a building that has nearly 200 years of history is a challenge…As a priority, what we want to air-condition is the classes,” he said.
