Our childhood surroundings color our future and mark our sense of belonging to our family, neighbourhood and city. For many Franco-Ontarians who fought for decades to obtain the right to French-language education, particularly at the time of Regulation 17 (1912-1927), schools are cultural and social learning places, the very heart of the community.
Ontario has two types of school boards: public and separate (Roman Catholic). The first public school board of Vanier, the Public School Board of Section 25, Gloucester, is created in Janeville in 1883 and the first school is built in 1884. As for the first Separate School Board in Janeville, it is established on December 26, 1888. The first school opened its doors to students in September 1889. The first schools of Vanier were led by religious organizations, namely the Daughters of Wisdom and the Brothers of the Sacred Heart. In 1891, the Daughters of Wisdom took over the Roman Catholic school that already had an enrolment of 200 pupils.
The population growth, both Anglophone and Francophone, recorded in Eastview during the first half of the 20th century resulted in the construction of many new schools in Vanier. However, it was the post-war “baby boom” that produced an explosion in the number of students. In the ‘50s, five new French schools emerged, three of them in the same year! The student population stabilized in the ‘60s and then diminished at the end of the ‘70s. By then, several schools were forced to close down . Nevertheless, the first public francophone high school in Ontario, the École secondaire André-Laurendeau, opened its doors in Vanier in 1969. This school marked a new beginning for Ontario’s francophonie.
L'école Ducharme. Muséoparc Vanier Museopark
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L'école Baribeau. Muséoparc Vanier Museopark
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L'école Cadieux. Muséoparc Vanier Museopark
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L'école Hervé Beriault. Muséoparc Vanier Museopark
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Assumption school. Muséoparc Vanier Museopark
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École André-Laurendeau. Muséoparc Vanier Museopark
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L'école St-Charles. MVM / Benoit Aubry
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Conseil des écoles publiques de l'Est de l'Ontario. Formerly the école Genest MVM / Benoit Aubry
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Robert E. Wilson school. MVM / Benoit Aubry
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Primary Separate Schools :
- École St-Charles : 1910
- École Montfort : 1912
- École Genest : 1930 (rebuilt in 1949 after a fire)
- École Ducharme : 1937
- Assumption School : 1949
- École Baribeau : 1953
- École Barrette : 1955
- École Glaude : 1958
- École Cadieux : 1958
- École Bériault : 1958
Primary Public Schools :
- Janeville public school: 1884 (became Eastview Public School in 1910, and J.O. Swerdfager School around 1955).
- Robert E. Wilson School : 1955
High Schools :
- Eastview High School: 1949; the first official bilingual school in Ontario. In the middle of the twentieth century, French-language secondary education in Ontario was not publicly funded. It’s only in 1969, following the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, that the Eastview High School changed its name and its vocation by becoming the École secondaire André-Laurendeau, the first public French-language secondary school in Ontario.
- In 1971, École secondaire Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes, a former residential school of the Daughters of Wisdom is renamed École secondaire Belcourt.
