New Herzliah school may be built on Y property

The Talmud Torah/Herzliah High School campus on St. Kevin Avenue would only be an elementary school if the new Herzliah is built. GOOGLE STREET VIEW PHOTO

MONTREAL — A new Herzliah High School will be built on the parking lot of the YM-YWHA if the two institutions finalize announced plans for the project.

Should the project go ahead – and spokesperson Jonathan Goldbloom said “an important step has been taken in that direction” – it would be the most significant investment in the Jewish community campus in many years.

On Sept. 19, Talmud Torah/Herzliah president Monica Mendel Bensoussan and Y president Joel Shalit issued a joint statement that the two institutions had signed “a non-binding letter of intent” regarding the construction of an approximately 80,000-square-foot high school on the Y property.

Although much remains to be ironed out, Goldbloom, an outside public relations consultant, said the two institutions wanted to be “transparent with the community that they are moving forward.”

The estimated cost of the project was not announced, but a capital campaign will be launched and the school is “confident after discussions with potential lead donors that it will be able to raise the funds needed,” the joint statement reads.

The school says tuition will not be affected.

No timetable was announced, except that architectural plans are to be drawn up in “the coming months” that will require the approval of both the school and the Y. The city will also have to give the green light that the project conforms to bylaws.

TT/Herzliah has one campus on St. Kevin Avenue, a block from the Y, since it closed its elementary and high school in St. Laurent in 2011 due to a lack of students and financial problems. 

A plan to merge TT/Herzliah and the larger Jewish People’s and Peretz Schools/Bialik High School, was launched in early 2011, because the schools’ leaders believed they were not both sustainable over the long term. That plan was scuttled less than a year later due largely to lack of support from parents and teachers. 

Part of those plans was to build a school for Grade 7 and 8 students on the Y parking lot.

TT/Herzliah currently has 647 students – 224 in the elementary division and 423 in the high school, Goldbloom said. That’s up from 615 last year.

Federation CJA, Jewish Public Library, the Cummings Jewish Centre for Seniors and the Segal Centre for Performing Arts are the other main institutions on the campus.

The new high school would include “spacious classrooms, a fully integrated technology platform, music rehearsal and seminar rooms, a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) centre and group meeting spaces, faculty offices and a variety of labs,” the statement said.

All students would have Y membership.

“Our hope is that their Y affiliation will become a central part of their communal life where they and their families will always feel welcome,” the statement reads.

They anticipate that access to and traffic around the new school will be of concern, and have already proposed a solution.

“Although the civic address of the school will be on Westbury [Avenue], we will be establishing a student entrance on either Edouard Montpetit Boulevard or Mountain Sights Avenue, which will serve as the drop-off point at the start and end of the school day.”

They are also cognizant of the rights of existing Y members. The agreement specifies when TT/Herzliah students will be able to use the Y’s gyms, pool and running track.

The new school will also have its own gym or fitness studio, which Y members can use as well, and the Y will have the use of other school space for its classes and programming.

The school and the Y say they will try to reach a binding agreement “as soon as possible.”