Ste-Amélie School

Ste-Amélie School

Education from the 1930s to the 1950s was denominational, meaning that schools were divided along religious lines. From the very beginning, two schools were built to meet the needs of two distinct populations: Protestants, who were predominantly English-speaking, and Catholics, who were predominantly French-speaking. The Catholic school was built on a slope along Marquette Avenue, across from the church and next to the presbytery.

It was first named St. Joseph, then when the church of St. Amélie became the Cathedral of St. John Eudes in 1942, it became St. Amélie School. The Sisters of the Holy Cross, convinced by Bishop Napoléon-Alexandre Labrie, then apostolic vicar, taught the classes. This first school catered to both French and English speakers. Sister Marie-Lucie (Béatrice Boucher) taught singing and music, Sister Marie Saint-Jean (Lucille Ledoux) taught art and music. The students were entitled to afternoon cinema sessions and presented short plays in the church basement.

In 1949, a normal school was added to primary and secondary education.

The first obstacle came from the population. We had a school with which we were satisfied. The young girls who left it, after completing the ordinary course, could easily find work in the offices of the Quebec North Shore company, soon at British Aluminum or in other companies, while waiting to get married. What more did we need? The only ambition of parents and young girls in general was this easy salary.

A higher culture was not even considered. Bishop Labrie invited parents and all interested parties to a conference at the parish hall.

The great problem was that many of our people knew nothing about our education system, which they considered inferior. For them, the ultimate in education was knowledge of English. The lecturer [Bishop Labrie] explained our system to them at length, emphasized its cultural value, cited examples, and reminded the parents that our region had reached the point where it had to think not only about making money, but about raising itself to the cultural level of other regions of the country. We had to be proud of it. The normal school already allowed us to begin this leveling while waiting for the classical course, for girls as well as for boys, to come along and provide the complement.

When the Clercs de St-Viateur built a boys’ school on Cadillac Avenue in 1948, École St-Amélie became a girls’ school. With the English-speaking population declining, the French-speaking and English-speaking student populations exchanged schools in the early 1970s. McCormick School became French-speaking, and École Ste-Amélie became Baie-Comeau High School, which taught both elementary and secondary school.

McCormick School suffered a devastating fire in 2004. The Estuaire School Board decided not to rebuild it. A mural, created by the students and saved from the flames, is on display near the Mance Pavilion.