Riverview becomes Community Learning Centre

Riverview is one of 22 Quebec schools which have been selected so far by the Education Ministry, with some of them already up and running. Riverview hopefully will be ready for some services in January and fully functioning next September.

Riverview was selected for what it presented and what it could bring to the community according to Charles Merilees, Sector 1 Director for the LBPSB. “Schools were asked to submit proposals to become Community Learning Centers. The board selected the Riverview proposal to be the best of those submitted. It is hoped that the CLC will help develop and sustain links between the school and community groups,” says Mr. Merilees.

Riverview Principal also sees it as a positive one for the school and the Verdun area. “The benefit of having a CLC in Verdun is that the community will have services close to home, in the same place where their children go to school. It will be a place that the families know and where we will design classes and activities according to their needs. It will be a school open to the community and it will have a beneficial impact on the children of Riverview. When the children see their parents going to their school to participate in pleasant activities, and not only because there is a problem, it will make them see the school in a more positive light.” said Miss Rabbat.

CLC’s, also called Community Schools, are not new, according to Noel Burke, assistant deputy minister of education for the English community, who notes they are in other Canadian provinces, the U.S. and Europe.

Each CLC will receive $150,000 over 3 years: 40,000 a year to hire a community development coordinator, plus a $30,000 video-conferencing network that is being purchased by a project resource team at LEARN (Leading Education and Resources Network). The video network will not only be used by the CLC’s to work with each other, but offers several possibilities for teacher training, linking students with outside organizations such as, the Insectarium which has online programs for schools. The outside world will come into the school.

The Board will also have to match the Quebec amount of $150,000 in the form of human resources and renovating the parts of the school that will be used for the centre. The Board will be responsible for the operation of the centre outside of school hours.

In the Framework for Action CLC booklet, a hub diagram shows the CLC in the middle with a myriad of services surrounding it such as: Family Support Services, After-School Programs for students, Community Economic Development, and Heath Education Programs. Family Services could mean support programs for single mothers; After School programs could mean homework assistance programs for students in need of such help.