The first month of school is demanding, exciting and energizing. At our last Council meeting in August we were anticipating the month ahead of us; now that it is behind us, I would like to thank, with heartfelt appreciation every person in the LBPSB who worked diligently and enthusiastically to welcome the cohort of 2025-2026 students to their schools and centres. We always strive for a “perfect” school start where everything falls into place beautifully and where glitches and disappointments are solved immediately to try to ensure happiness and security for all. Perfection, in practice, is not possible. For anyone. But earnest intention is and that is what our community of all educators, support staff, head office administrators, managers, commissioners, families and students have demonstrated. When we have a caring and patient community we can move forward together, positively and constructively.

The LBPSB is still navigating the political landscape with not only a newly appointed Minister of Education, MNA Sonia LeBel, whose priorities we have yet to learn, but also with the fallout of severe budget cuts in June, some of the possible remedies in July and a new deadline to submit our school budgets for 2025-2026 at the end of October. This is a highly unusual situation for us as we have been navigating this uncertainty while at the same time organizing services and staff allocations to provide stability and the best education within our means. I applaud the tireless (although I am sure everyone is very tired) work of our finance and administration who have been focused on this budget building, an especially difficult task this school year.

I would also like to take a moment to extend our deepest sympathies and sorrow to the family of Nooran Rezayi. Nooran, who at the young age of 15, was shot by a police officer on September 21, in a suburban neighbourhood of Longueil. Why? We will never understand how this could have happened. We all have, I am pretty sure all, because I certainly have, been thinking this child could have been my loved one. This makes no sense when we adults are supposed to be the custodians of our youth, to provide safety, security, care – to protect our young generation. As a school board community, we also share our deepest respect and sadness for the École Secondaire, André Laurendeau community in St. Hubert where Nooran was a student. We can only devastatingly imagine the support the school community requires to help them in their mourning of the the senseless and terrible loss of Nooran.

So tonight, as we continue to do our work in providing the best and being the best we can, we can also remind ourselves that we do this work because it truly matters. What we do matters. The choices we make matter. What we say and how we say it matters. Please, while we are being the best we can be, with kindness and civility, let’s remind ourselves that although not perfect everyone is perfectly cared about. This kind of care makes a difference.