Sacred Heart School: English High School

Kahnawake Sacred Heart Dept: Every time I went to alumnae dinners at Sacred Heart School, it seemed tuition had doubled from what it had been at the time of the last dinner. So I figured, no problem: it will be public school for my children. Back in my day, education at a Catholic confessional school was pretty close to that. I had schoolmates from hard-working immigrant families, neighbouring suburbs, Kahnawake Sacred Heart was once a boarding school and the wealthiest parts of Westmount. When I went to Marianopolis, I made friends from great public schools, according to Montreal Gazette. Within 24 hours of Ben writing his first admission exam, Regina posted his acceptance on a password-protected website. MSL played a little harder to get, waiting a full 48 hours before calling us personally to welcome Ben and i always expected my children to follow my educational path, more or less: French elementary school to develop a good accent, English high school to develop writing. But last year, when my son, Ben, turned 11, I hit an unexpected snag. He didn t want to go to English high school. He wanted to go to Coll ge Mont Saint Louis, a former confessional school that is now a parent-directed co-op. At the open house, we sat in comfortable leather chairs in the beautiful lobby of the Riopelle wing, watched the MSL Kodiaks play on their newly built football field, and talked to charming English teachers in the enriched English program. For contrast, we visited Coll ge Regina Assumpta down the street. The former Catholic girls school offered an equally lovely campus in the diverse neighbourhood of Ahuntsic, and a choice of Mandarin or Spanish courses. It wasn t free, but at $2,800 a year, it wasn t even three times what my parents had paid for my high-school tuition more than 30 years ago. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.