École paroissiale / École Notre-Dame

When the convent was established in Joliette in 1875, the sisters of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame opened two classes in the boarding facility. The former residence of a Mr. Panneton on de Lanaudière Street, served as day school. This became Saint-Charles-Borromée Parish School which, in 1912, was renovated to make room for the students of the Joliette Normal School’s practical applications branch. In 1948 it took the name Notre-Dame School. The director was Sister Sainte-Marie-Clotilde (Aurore Lachapelle) and she was accompanied by twelve teachers. Twelve classes were opened to receive three hundred twenty-seven students from Grade 1 to Grade 10. Because of the importance Bishop Joseph-Arthur Papineau gave to the teaching of Catechism, the Clerics of Saint-Viateur regularly gave classes to the students of Notre-Dame School. In addition to academic subjects, the sisters taught piano, singing, sewing, diction and homemaking. Students also joined Jeunesse étudiante catholique and Croisade eucharistique, and through these, several events and trips were organized. In 1951, during a week-long campaign, the students’ parents were invited to attend a meeting at the school. Some fifty parents attended the event which began with songs and a piano recital. It continued with a forum on education and the role of the parents in their child’s education. That same year, the School Commission assigned a physical education teacher to Notre-Dame School. In 1953, during the celebrations for Bishop Papineau’s Silver Jubilee, the students performed in the play La petite Jeanne d'Arc.

In 1954, members of the group Service à la vie came to the school and offered classes on rational psychology, which explored subjects such as friendship and male and female psychology. During the 1950s, many prevention campaigns against diseases for the benefit of the students were organized. Among them was the B.C.G. (bacillus Calmette-Guérin) vaccination campaign against tuberculosis. Following the death of a student who was hit by a bus along the busy road the students had to take to get to school, members of the provincial police offered courses in road safety. In 1956, several students from Grade 1 to Grade 3 were transferred to the new and closer Tellier School. This reduced the number of classes in Notre-Dame School from twelve to ten with two hundred fifty students registered. From 1958 to 1960, Grade 11 and Grade 12 classes were added and the institution became Notre-Dame High School. In 1961, the school, merged with the Joliette Boarding School, becoming a regional school with twice the number of students. That same year, a guidance counselor was assigned to the school. From that point on, the annals were merged with those of the boarding school.

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.