'Surplus' building re-opens as French school

One of the eight schools closed in P.E.I. in June has been given a new lease on life.

The former Fortune Consolidated is now L'Ecole La-Belle-Cloche, the French school for Eastern P.E.I.

The 41 French students, from St. Peter's to East Point, are excited about their new digs, said principal Nellie Bertrand. Up until this week, their school had been housed in an old fisheries building in Souris.

"We have our gym, our full-size gym with one volleyball court, and we have badminton and basketball, so the kids are very happy," said Bertrand, noting the old gym was in a garage, which used to house boats for the winter.

The new school also has a library about twice the size of the old one, and a computer lab with 12 computers, up from five.

Still, the French school board hopes the new location is only temporary, for less than five years, because of some other problems.

The facility was built as an elementary school, so it's missing some things required by high school students, such as a science lab, and the amenities that are there are too small for the older students. It also lacks wheelchair access.

So the French board has put in a $3.8-million request to the province to build a new French school in Souris.

Meanwhile, the Eastern School Board voted Wednesday to declare all eight of the closed schools as surplus. They'll become the property of the province at the end of September.