Ribbon cut at Sault’s new French Immersion school (12 photos)

Algoma District School Board (ADSB) officials and students gathered for a ‘coupe de ruban’ (that’s ‘ribbon cutting’ for those of us who are unilingual and Anglophone) at the board’s new Boreal French Immersion Public School at 232 Northern Ave. E. Tuesday.

A public open house was scheduled to follow between 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

“I came on board in October of last year and I’ve seen the building transform and it’s been really exciting, but the best part of it was to see students and staff enter this building and the excitement that it brought,” said Carrie Vaz, Boreal French Immersion principal, speaking to SooToday.

Davey Taylor is the school’s vice principal.

“It’s a new learning environment with some of the features like the learning commons, our computer lab, collaborative learning space, it’s exciting to see staff and students faces light up as they enter these new spaces and see the potential for learning in all of them.”

“It feels great. It’s very exciting to be a part of a project of this calibre, I’m absolutely honoured to be the principal here,” Vaz said.

The school, built on the former Alexander Henry High School site, opened for classes Sept. 4 as a school for JK to Grade 8 French Immersion students. Enrolment at the Northern Avenue site currently stands at 450.

The former Alexander Henry High School closed in 2012, the province first announcing $6.7 million in funding for the new French Immersion school in Oct. 2015.

Final price tag for the new school, which is in fact a total renovation of the old Henry, is approximately $16.5 million, said Joe Santa Maria, ADSB superintendent of business.

“If we were to build this same structure from the ground up instead of the money we got for the renovation, we’d be in the $50 million range,” Santa Maria told us.  

The original Henry was renovated into two separate structures, including the Boreal French Immersion Public School itself, with plans in the works for a new Sault Ste. Marie Public Library branch, the ADSB’s physical plant department and transportation building to open at the site in the new year.

The Sault YMCA will run a daycare space at the building, scheduled to open in October after Thanksgiving.

With Boreal French Immersion now a part of the ADSB’s landscape, the board’s French Immersion school on Chapple Avenue is now closed. That school was renamed Boreal for the 2017-2018 school year and offered French immersion instruction for students in Grades 4 to 8.

ADSB French Immersion students north of McNabb Street go to Boreal, while French Immersion students living south of McNabb attend F.H. Clergue.

Between Boreal and F.H. Clergue, 1,000 students are now enrolled in ADSB French Immersion schools.