Until this year, nobody complained about the crucifixes on the classroom walls at Ecole primaire Mont-Bleu in Gatineau, Que. - even though Quebec schools have been French or English instead of Roman Catholic or public since 1998. But a recent complaint from a parent prompted the Commission scolaire des Portages-de-l'Outaouais to remove the crucifixes this week.
School board president Jocelyn Blondin said Friday he didn't know crucifixes were in the school when school officials removed them on Thursday. He said some parents would prefer to keep the crucifixes, but they had to go because Mont-Bleu is a public, not a confessional school. The school has 404 students in kindergarten to Grade 6.
Blondin could not explain how the crucifixes remained on classroom walls, unchallenged for almost 10 years.
"One parent complained, so we simply took down the crucifixes," Blondin said.
"None of our schools should have crucifixes. Some parents would like to keep them, but provincial law says we can have no more religion or religious symbols in the schools,"Blondin said.
"The crucifixes were supposed to have been taken down about 10 years ago."
Mont-Bleu is the only elementary school within the board offering an international program that includes classes in French, English and Spanish.
Starting in the fall of 2008, Portages-de-l'Outaouais and other Quebec public boards will teach world religions in high school instead of moral education, because of a change in the provincial high school curriculum.
There have been no other complaints about crucifixes at any other of the board's 23 elementary schools and four high schools.
Blondin said the school board was concerned it would have to deal with requests for other religious symbols on classroom walls if it allowed the crucifixes to remain in the school.
Rene Laprise, a spokesman for the Gatineau Archdiocese, said he is not concerned about the removal of crucifixes and the end of religious teaching in local schools because churches have been doing the work for years.
"We agree with the deconfessionalization of schools and are taking over greater responsibility for religious training," Laprise said. "It may be sad if they remove the crucifixes, but we cannot oppose that. There has been no teaching of catechism in Quebec schools for 26 years."
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