Montreal private school for students with learning challenges may close due to massive debt

The Montreal private school Centennial Academy may close as it faces a major budget shortfall.

The Montreal private school Centennial Academy is at risk of closing next year, as it has a major budget issue.

If it can’t come up with new funds, the school for students with learning difficulties will have to close.

Grade 7 students Julien and Iakonerahtase are two students at the school, who struggled in public school but felt much different at the school on Sherbrooke Street West.

“I’m a visual learner, and this helps way more,” said Iakonerahtase. “My grades are all the way up to the sky, and I’m just, like, more focused.”

The school works with students with learning disabilities, including ADHD and dyslexia, and has developed learning models that don’t exist in public schools for decades.

“I could see teachers giving up on him, and I could see the impact that that was having on his beautiful, creative little soul,” said Barbara Whiston, whose son is at the school.

Today, Whiston says her son is thriving, but she and other parents are worried about the school’s future, as it deals with a debt of roughly $9 million.

“Right now, we have a financial situation where, at this point in time, we cannot assure next year,” said school director Angela Burgos.

The school blames a run of bad luck after losing its old location and moving to the heritage building downtown in 2020.

The required renovations were extensive and Burgos said there were unforeseeable cost overruns and that fundraising fell short.

“Raising funds during COVID was difficult, so we didn’t meet our criteria that we had hoped for that situation,” she said.

Tuition at the school is $23,000 per year and the school receives some government funding equal to around $6,000 per student for its English sector.

It’s French sector, however, which makes up half the student body, doesn’t get funding for those students because it was started after the Quebec government’s freeze on funding for new private schools.

Westmount—Saint-Louis Liberal MNA Jennifer Maccarone plans to file a petition at the National Assembly.

“I think that the government needs to look at private schools that are catering to students with special needs that are succeeding, and wonder if that’s a model that we should be reproducing as a pilot project elsewhere,” she said.

The education ministry did not respond to a CTV News request for comment.

The school, which has an 80 per cent success rate, has applied for emergency funding and to become a special status school.

Many of its students, such as Grade 11 student Katia Wolff, are heading to CEGEP.

“I’m way more confident as a student and I’m ready; I’m ready for CEGEP,” said Wolff.

The school is hoping it will be able to fundraise and attract investors in order to retire the debt, but, if it cannot, it will be forced to close.

For parents, it may be too late to find another private school for next year.

“Honestly, I can’t even go there,” said Whiston. “There is no alternative. There is no other place I can send him.”

She added that no schools come close to Centennial’s quality of education.