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A judge has ordered the GNWT to ease overcrowding at Hay River's French-language Ecole Boreale school. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

HAY RIVER -A court has ordered the GNWT to provide three high school classrooms for students from Ecole Boreale, the French-language school in Hay River.

In a July 22 ruling, NWT Supreme Court Justice Louise Charbonneau directed the government to provide the classrooms in a secondary level school setting in Hay River.

The classrooms would be for about 25 students in Grades 7 to 11 from Ecole Boreale, which is overcrowded.

The court ruling is the result of a request for a temporary injunction by the Commission Scolaire de Francophone, Territoires du Nord-Ouest.

"Essentially, we won," said Paul Theriault, superintendent of the Yellowknife-based school board.

Theriault said Charbonneau's ruling does not necessarily mean the students will be moving to Diamond Jenness secondary school, the only high school in Hay River.

"She said the government must meet our needs, but she's not tying their hands," he said.

Theriault said the judge was very pointed in not specifically mentioning Diamond Jenness in her judgment, which was delivered in French.

The superintendent said the court order might be able to be met by creating a high school setting somewhere else in the community. That could involve portable classrooms or space in the community's high-rise building.

If the government decides to accommodate the students at Diamond Jenness, it would have to provide a separate entrance and separate washrooms, along with the three classrooms, Theriault said.

The court also ordered the government to provide equal access to science labs and gymnasium time.

Theriault said the school board does not think space in Diamond Jenness would be the best solution.

"It's not better than the high-rise," he said. "The high-rise would have been the best solution."

Theriault said Diamond Jenness is hoping for its own major renovations in the near future, meaning changes to accommodate Ecole Boreale students would just be temporary, possibly only a one-year solution.

"It doesn't sound very economical to me," he said.

Speaking last week, Shawn McCann, the manager of public affairs with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, said the department reserved comment on the court ruling.

"We're still reviewing the decision," McCann said.

Ecole Boreale, which opened in 2005, was designed for 95 students in kindergarten to Grade 6 with plans to eventually expand the school to accommodate students in higher grades.

The number of students has been rising as they grow up in the school. It had about 93 students up to Grade 10 during the past school year.

It is estimated the school will have 123 students in the fall when Grade 11 is added and more kindergarten students arrive.

A full court hearing will take place later for a permanent solution to the overcrowding.

A hearing on the injunction request was held on July 9.

During the hearing, the GNWT claimed there is an insufficient number of rightholders to French-language education in Hay River to expand the school, which has been admitting some non-rightholders. Children of French heritage have a right to education in that language under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In mid-July, Jackson Lafferty, the minister of education, culture and employment, issued a ministerial directive that no new students be admitted to Ecole Boreale and Ecole Allain St-Cyr in Yellowknife unless they are rightholders, or unless the minister has approved the enrollment of a student.

Theriault said the school board plans to return to court to seek an injunction against the directive, which he has described as unconstitutional.

About 10 per cent of the students at Ecole Boreale are non-rightholders.