École Saint-Philippe

In 1956, because of school overcrowding, the Windsor School Commission decided to build a new twelve-classroom school. The following year, the commissioners asked the Congrégation de Notre-Dame to take on the responsibility of directing the school. At first, the request was refused. However, some months later, as a result of the intervention of Joseph-Arthur Lemay, pastor of Saint-Philippe de Windsor Parish, the sisters reconsidered their decision. That same year, construction of the new school began on land situated on 6th Avenue. Unfortunately, the walls erected during the winter of 1957-1958 collapsed, thus delaying the completion of the building. The building opened in September 1958. The school was founded by Sister Saint-Philippe-de-Florence (Ernestine Houle), the director, and Sister Sainte-Germaine-de-Notre-Dame (Pauline Gravel); they resided in Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes School. At the beginning of the first school year, the sisters, with ten lay teachers, received one hundred seventy-nine girls and one hundred eighty-nine boys divided into ten classes, of which two were English. The following year, the school was blessed by Archbishop Georges Cabana of Sherbrooke. From the outset, the Eucharistic Crusade was present in the school.

Year-end results for the 1960 school year placed the students among the best in the region. In September, the school commission decided that the building would become a boys’ high school under the direction of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart. Saint-Philippe School was transferred to the brothers’ former school on Ambroise-Dearden Street (formerly Saint-Ambroise). These changes placed the Sisters of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame in an exceptional situation: They were responsible for the direction a boys’ school. It numbered over five hundred students of which only thirty-three were English-speaking girls. The new building became overcrowded. The School Commission was obliged to transfer two classes elsewhere: either in the boys’ high school or in the church basement. Saint Patrick’s Day in March 1961, was a holiday for the English-speaking students. However, for the rest of the students, it was a normal school day. In April, a class, overseen by a lay teacher, was opened for students who needed help in assimilating the curriculum. During the summer of that year, the School Commission revised the school’s organization. It was divided into two separate sections: the boys’ under the direction of lay male personnel, and the girls’, which the Congrégation de Notre-Dame had ceded to lay personnel.

NB: This text was written using documents found in the archival holdings in our possession and does not constitute a complete administrative history of the teaching establishment.