English Montreal School Board

English Montreal School Board
Commission scolaire English-Montréal
The EMSB Logo
Board office location	6000 Fielding Avenue, Montreal, Quebec
Communities served	Montreal
Number of schools	40 elementary schools 17 secondary schools 11 outreach schools 10 social affairs institutions 11 adult and vocational centres^[1]
Number of students	38,000^[1]
Chair of the Board	Angela Mancini
Director of Education	Robert Stocker
Elected Trustees	23^[1]
EMSB website

English Montreal School Board (EMSB or in French, Commission scolaire English-Montréal - CSEM) is one of the 5 school boards in the island of Montreal. The EMSB is the largest anglophone school board of 9 in Quebec.

The EMSB is responsible for English-speaking public schools in the city of Montreal, which makes up the center and eastern sectors of Montreal Island (The city of Montreal accounts for only 2/3 of the island of Montreal, the other 1/3 of the island of Montreal is mostly independent cities). Anglophone public education in the western portion of Montreal Island is administered by the Lester B. Pearson School Board.

Robert A. Stocker is the current Director General of the school board and its chief administrative officer. He is assisted by Roma Medwid, Deputy Director General, several department heads, coordinators and four regional directors. The school board has divided its territory into three regions for administrative purposes. The regional directors are the immediate superiors of elementary and high school principals.

Angela Mancini is the current chair of the school board. Silvia Lo Bianco is the vice chair. Twenty-one other commissioners representing different wards within the school board's territory and two non-voting parent representatives also sit on the Council of Commissioners. The Council sets school board policy and gives the board its political direction. It usually meets on the fourth Wednesday of every month. All members of the council are elected every four years.

The main offices of the board are at 6000, Fielding Avenue in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district of the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. The building was formerly occupied by the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal (PSBGM).

History

The Government of Quebec reorganized the province's public school boards in the mid-1990s. School boards in Quebec had been organized along confessional lines, Catholic and Protestant, since before Canadian Confederation. In fact, Quebec was guaranteed a confessional public school system by the British North America Act, 1867, now known as the Constitution Act, 1867. The provincial government was therefore required to ask the federal government to amend the Canadian Constitution if it were to reorganize school boards along linguistic lines, English and French. The amendment was passed without much debate by both the House of Commons and the Senate, notwithstanding the unresolved constitutional debate between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

The new board began operations on July 1, 1998. The English sectors of the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal (PSBGM), the Montreal Catholic School Commission (CECM), the Commission scolaire Jérôme-Le Royer and the Commission scolaire Sainte-Croix were amalgamated to form the EMSB.^[2]

The political infighting among the board's commissioners has received significant coverage in Montreal's English-language media, most notably the Montreal Gazette. This fighting, for the most part, had previously pitted Catholics vs. Protestants. That division has recently become much less significant, however. The harmonization of the previous boards' administrative policies as well as the debate over school closings due to declining enrollment have been especially inflammatory. In 2005, both the Montreal Gazette and the French-language tabloid Le Journal de Montréal printed a special series of articles denouncing alleged nepotism and graft in the province's public school boards. The Gazette's investigation focused almost exclusively on the hiring practices of the English Montreal School Board. A recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling requiring provincial public bodies to hold open meetings will challenge its board of commissioners, which habitually meets behind closed doors.

Enrollment in the English Montreal School Board's schools and centres continues to decline as it does in most anglophone public school boards in Quebec. This is a part of an ongoing decline which began with the enactment of the Charter of the French Language by the Québec government In 1977.

The EMSB recently announced its intention to create its own foundation. According to its website, the goal of a future EMSB foundation would be to "ensure funding for unique and creative projects by raising charitable funds from individuals, businesses, community service organizations, and other friends". A Montreal businessman had already made a first donation to the school board in the autumn of 2006. The board has also organized, for the past several years, an annual fundraising golf tournament.^[3]

Since the EMSB's creation in 1998, the board has closed 18 schools, most recently 3 elementary schools in 2012.^[4] The School Board's chairperson attributes the declining enrolment to Bill 101, families moving to cities with lower home taxes such as Laval, and the general decline in birth rates.^[4]

The EMSB had the highest voter turnout among all school boards in Quebec, with 18%.^[5]

Current issues

The next school board elections will take place on Sunday, November 2, 2014. At the EMSB there will be 10 electoral divisions (compared to the present 23) and the position of chairman will be chosen by universal suffrage. This will be for a three year term. The last school board elections took place in 2007.