LARRY’S RIVER — After weeks of construction delays, the new building that houses Guysborough Country’s first French language school in Larry’s River has finally welcomed students and teachers amid cheers from a community whose patience may be one of its greatest virtues.
“We are rebuilding a community,” Stephanie Comeau, director of communications at Conseil scolaire acadien provincial (CSAP), told The Journal in an interview last week about the opening of École Belle-Baie’s new building Dec. 9. “This is an opportunity for the kids in that school to be able to learn in their own language and give back to the community.”
According to a CSAP post to École Belle-Baie’s Facebook page, “The last few days have been busy, and it is with great joy and excitement that we welcome our students to their brand new space. A huge thank you to everyone for your help, your patience and your energy. This new environment has been designed to foster learning, creativity and wellbeing for every member of our community.”
Now that the building has opened, Comeau said, the community can get busy consolidating its French language education for local school children, many of whom can trace their Acadian roots in the area back hundreds of years. “It’s a feel good story,” she said.
The structure is the end of a chapter that began more than a year ago when the newly accredited École Belle-Baie became Guysborough County’s first French-language school to serve students living in the traditionally Acadian area that includes the communities of Larry’s River, Tor Bay, Charlos Cove and Port Felix. At the time, the 17-20 students from Primary to Grade 10 and their handful of teachers set up temporary digs in the community centre in Larry’s River while they waited for construction on the new schoolhouse to begin.
“What’s important is that this was the last Acadian region in Nova Scotia to not have a school at proximity,” Comeau told The Journal in September of last year. “The closest one to them was an hour-and-a-half by bus one way [in Pomquet], and an hour-and-a-half by bus the other.”
Getting a building of their own, she said “was a community effort where a group of parents in the area said that they wanted to have a school. Through their efforts and with the [advocacy] of the CSAP,” the provincial government agreed to pay and arrange for its construction.
The new modular structure – housing classrooms, washrooms, a staff room, office and reception area – began construction in this north shore Acadian enclave of Guysborough County in July. But labour shortages caused several postponements to opening.
In October, Krista Higdon, of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, still did not know when the building would be ready to welcome the 21 or 22 local students and handful of teachers who’d been functioning in space at the nearby community centre since early September.
“There are several challenges facing the construction industry right now, including availability of skilled labour,” she told The Journal the about progress on the $5-million structure, paid for under the province’s school capital program. “Delays to school projects are disappointing and we work to avoid them [to] the extent possible.”
When ready, however, she said, “It will have space for more than 125 students from grades pre-primary to Grade 10.”
École Belle-Baie principal Nicole Avery Bell was not available to The Journal for comment last week, but in interviews over the past year, she’s been crystal clear about the importance of having a building in the community exclusively designated for French language teaching and learning.
“A school is obviously a place to pass on knowledge, but this will be more than just that,” she said. “It will become the hub of this community, the hub of this Acadian revival, a symbol of something worthy that we’ve been working towards.... I think with a permanent structure, there will be many more parents interested, thinking, ‘Hey this is not a passing fancy.’ We never lost the culture and identity, but over the generations the language was very much lost. Now, with this building, we’re taking it back.”
An opening ceremony is scheduled for March 4 during French Education Week. Said Comeau last week: “It really is a wonderful thing.”
