Holy Angels students rally to save school

Students at Holy Angels High School in Sydney, N.S., are circulating a petition in the hopes of saving the only all-girls public school in Atlantic Canada.

"We made a rough estimate about how many names we have so far and the number we came up with was 4,560," said Viola MacNeil, a Holy Angels student.

The building, which is currently owned by the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, has been leased by the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board. The nuns are selling the building and the adjacent convent next year.

Last week, the provincial Department of Education announced that it will not pay to buy the school from the nuns, which means the school will close in June.

"My mom went here and my mom's four sisters went here," said MacNeil, one of 300 girls who enrol at Holy Angels every year.

It gave me a lot of self-esteem and a lot of confidence to stand up for what I believe in," said Vanessa Parris, another Holy Angels student.

With thousands of names on the petition already, students say the support for the school is obvious.

"There's no point in closing something that people are still wanting to go to," said Kayla MacKeign. "People are still wanting to come here."

Janine MacAulay, the vice-principal of Holy Angels High School, said even when the news of the school's possible closure broke last year, it didn't affect enrolment negatively.

"In fact, when we went through our school review process, our enrolment was actually slated to increase over the next couple of years," she told CBC News.

"We are serving a need for students here."

Education Minister Marilyn More said her department has offered to work with the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board to explore other options for Holy Angels.

Holy Angels High School was founded in 1885 as a way of helping young women develop their faith, poise and self-worth.