More than two hundred people took to the streets Saturday morning to protest the coming closure of Villa Maria High School’s music school, a place of learning that predates Confederation.
Students who cherish the school took part in the march from their private high school to Girouard Park, in the Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough, along with their parents, teachers and other people who care that culture remains a part of education.
The school’s administration announced in January the musical school’s program would close at the end of the school year. The school cited decreased enrolment in the program as the reason and noted fewer than 20 students enrolled for this year’s Secondary 1 private music option, the smallest class ever.
People involved in Saturday’s protest argue that figure is misleading and criticized the school for acting like a business.
Nathalie Fisette-Caza, left, president of the Parents Association, French students, Villa Maria, and Linnea Nguyen (Sec 3 student, centre), take part in a march protesting against the clsoing of Villa Maria’s 164-year old music school in Montreal on Saturday, April 7, 2018.
“The reasons that they are giving for closing the school are false. There are more and more students (enrolled at Villa Maria High School) each year,” said Alfred Lagrenade, a music teacher at the school for the past 15 years. He said 18 teachers will lose their jobs when the music school closes. “They’re telling us there is no interest from the parents, but that’s not true. You can see today (at the protest) there are a lot of parents here that care about music.
“(The school’s administration) simply doesn’t care about music. That’s what the whole thing is. That’s really hard to accept for a school. I have a feeling the school is becoming more like a business than a school. They are more interest in numbers and the money that comes from parents.”
Linnea Nguyen, a Secondary 3 student who takes voice lessons at the school, was front and centre in the protest march along with schoolmates who held up placards that read: “My best days were music days” and “Please don’t stop the music.”
“We want to make this public because everything has been so condensed within the school. The school is hiding all the facts from us. We want to show that we are not going to be silenced,” said Nguyen, while adding the music school “is one of the main reasons I go to Villa.”
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Nathalie Fisette-Caza, the president of the school’s parents association for francophone students, said the school made the decision without any form of consultation.
She said the low enrolment among Secondary 1 students cited by the school is misleading because most students entering a new school are more focused on settling in than considering options like music.
“The music school touches a lot of students. In the past, the same school, the same administration, told (a newspaper) in an article that one out of every two (Villa Maria) students signs up for the music school,” said Fisette-Caza who praised the music school for helping her children gain self-esteem and discipline. “It is transversal and it is clear it helps them in other things.”
Students who are fighting to keep the music school open have support from outside the school. An online petition supporting their cause began with the goal of collecting 1,000 signatures. It currently has more than 1,770 signatures. Prominent Montreal musicians like jazz pianist Oliver Jones and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin have voiced their opinions against the closing in an open letter signed by more than 100 people from Quebec’s music industry.
Students and parents take part in a march protesting against the closing of Villa Maria’s 164-year old music school in Montreal on Saturday, April 7, 2018.
The high school was founded in 1854 by the Sisters of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame, and, overall, it currently has a student body of about 1,400 boys and girls in its French and English sectors. About 200 students are enrolled in the music school.
In a letter sent to parents in January, the school’s administration wrote that: “We were forced to make this difficult decision based on a detailed analysis of the situation.
“Through recent surveys of current and prospective students’ parents, we noted a lower level of interest in the music school.”
In interviews, school administrators have also said the decision was made to focus on developing new courses. The school will continue to offer orchestra band as a course option as well as an after-school, extra-credit course in music.