Montreal private school rejects re-enrollment of teen with Down syndrome

From The Montreal Gazette:

The halls of College International Marie de France were filled once again this week with hundreds of students returning from their summer break, but one familiar face was not among them.

Aurelia Lubrina (pictured), who has Down syndrome, has been a student at the Montreal private school for the last eight years. During that time, her family says the shy 15-year-old has made enormous progress -interacting with a diverse cross-section of students and teachers and attending many of the same classes as her peers.

Last fall, however, the school's principal asked the Lubrina family to sign an agreement stating the 2009-10 academic year would be Aurelia's last at the school.
The administration said the institution -which receives funding from both the Quebec and French governments -could no longer provide a safe and appropriate environment in which Aurelia could learn.

Of particular concern, the school said, was the disabled teen's safety and the increasing intellectual gap between her and her cohorts. Under the terms of the agreement, which her parents eventually signed, Aurelia would not be permitted to re-enrol for 2010-11. Now, the family alleges it agreed to those terms under duress.

"We didn't know what else to do ... and we figured we would appeal," Aurelia's father, Francois Lubrina, said yesterday at a news conference. "They said, 'If you do not sign, she cannot go to school even in 2009-10.' "

Calls to the College International Marie de France were not returned yesterday.

Lubrina said the school has never needed to provide additional support for his daughter. Instead, the family had been paying around $12,000 annually for a teacher's aide to accompany Aurelia during the day -on top of $4,000 in annual tuition fees. Lubrina said the family was willing to continue doing that.

"This is the school attended by her mother, her sister, her uncle," he said. "She knows the school, the teachers, the children. ... With a bit of effort, she could have stayed there."

Now, said Lubrina, his daughter will be forced to readapt to a new environment. Finding that new environment, however, has proven to be a another challenge. The Lubrinas attempted to enrol her in the Centre Francois-Michelle, a Montreal school that offers specialized services to children with disabilities.

"We received a letter on July 5, saying that the (Centre Francois-Michelle) admissions committee said that she did not meet the admissibility standards," Lubrina said. "So then we got in touch with the local school board ... and they told my wife that there was nothing else available."

But Alain Perron, spokesperson for the Commission scolaire de Montreal, said there is nothing stopping the Lubrina family from enrolling Aurelia in a public school. In fact, they are required to do so. "That's the law for anyone under 16 years of age," Perron said. "They must attend school."