Lisa Scott
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 30/05) - Two months after a judge ordered the territorial government to improve conditions for French students in Yellowknife, the parents who made it all happen are pretty happy.

Not 100 per cent happy though, says Yvonne Careen, the president of the Parents Rightholders Association.

Students now hop on a provided bus to get down the road to the Multiplex gym. The Francophone division that runs Ecole Allain St-Cyr also just hammered out an agreement with Yellowknife Education District No. 1 to use labs, art rooms and the gym at William McDonald school until 2008.

That leaves the two portable classrooms included in the July Supreme Court judgement by Justice Vital Ouellette to improve facilities for French students in the city.

"The portables are what is up for discussion right now," says Careen.

The parents, who took the issue to court last year, aren't letting the government off the hook on that one, though they agreed to wait beyond the Sept. 1 deadline.

Ouellette agreed with the parents that a proper French-language education was missing in the city.

The association is seeking a deal with the GNWT for an expansion project that would add more classrooms and labs, a multipurpose room and a full-sized gym to the current school.

Heritage Canada would fund about 80 per cent of the costs for an expansion, which Division superintendent Andre Legare says could cost $2 million. "It's portables or expansion. Whichever comes first," says Careen.

Students crowded

The 14 Grade 8-11 students at the school go to class in the rotunda, where new soundproof walls were installed this summer to make the temporary classes more tolerable.

Principal Jacques Angers says the move will help deliver classes outside the classroom, enabling the school to offer them all the way up to Grade 12.

The 88 K-11 students are still cramped, he says, but the mood at Allain St-Cyr is one of optimism.

"They are feeling really well. This is the first year that all of the staff from last year came back," he says.

During the court case, parents claimed that the school was losing students, with enrolment dropping 20 per cent in recent years and kids leaving to go to high school at Sir John or St. Pat's.

Since the changes, enrolment has jumped by four students and the school has a bustling kindergarten class of 14.

The two parties will be in court again in December to discuss the changes.