Mault: New Ottawa French-language high school still faces challenges
The grass is freshly cut on the soccer fields, but nobody plays. No students are performing in the auditorium. The gym could play host to school tournaments, but alas, it sits empty.
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This is the case of the Adult High School at 300 Rochester St., a purpose-built high school in Little Italy, with a capacity of 1,300 students. In fact, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) is sitting on three similar school assets, all within a 5-km radius, with a combined enrollment of 56 per cent.
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Last year, I wrote in the Ottawa Citizen about the urgent need for a French-language high school in central Ottawa. Since then, there's been encouraging news: the government of Ontario has committed $40.8 million to build a new French-language public high school, which is currently expected to be located at LeBreton Flats.
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But that school is very unlikely to open this decade, and is certainly many years away because of site complexity and a myriad of decision-makers. For francophone families in Ottawa Centre, the need is immediate. Students within the system have been living with this crisis for years. Students entering public high school this fall cannot wait all these years. For them, the need is urgent.
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Last year, when a grassroot coalition of parents (secondaireottawacentre.ca) proposed the Adult High School as a temporary location — because of the physical attributes and the under-utilization of this asset, we were basically told 'hands off' by an OCDSB school trustee.
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Much has changed since our 2024 proposal. First, provincial funding has now been secured for a new French-language public high school in Ottawa Centre. Second, the OCDSB recently revealed that it has 17,000 empty seats in its schools and is facing a $20-million budget shortfall for the 2025-26 school year. To close the gap, the board considered major cuts: selling off surplus buildings, eliminating programs like gifted education and outdoor learning, and even charging families for busing to specialized programs. In fact, several reports confirmed that the Adult High School was being studied as a potential cost-saving measure.
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The timing is serendipitous. The Conseil des écoles publiques de l'Est de l'Ontario (CEPEO), which delivers public French language education in Ottawa, is seeking a temporary solution to house students in Ottawa Centre while the long-awaited new school is being built. Leasing part of the Adult High School facility to CEPEO would allow today's francophone public high school students to stay in French-language education while generating valuable revenue for the OCDSB.
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