École secondaire catholique Franco-Cité is a French Catholic school in Ottawa, Ontario. It is under the Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-Est (CECCE). The school offers three main programs to the students.HistoryThe school was inaugurated October 20, 1994. In its first year as a high school, ESC Franco-Cité had 150 9th Grade students enrolled. It is estimated that more than 1150 students are enrolled at Franco-Cité for September 2009. In 2004, the school started accepting Grade 7 and 8 students, instead of beginning with the usual Grade 9. The school has seen many different incarnations, from the original minor seminary, or Séminaire de Mazenod, run by the Oblate missionaries of Mary Immaculate as a grades 9 to 11 preparatory adjunct to their juniorate, the Juniorat du Sacré-Coeur, on the University of Ottawa campus, to sharing its premises with the Centre Jules-Léger, an adult school for the mentally-challenged, from old, dusty portables to a now beautiful redesigned building with added space for the two years added to the official high school experience. The seminary used to have a chapel on the second floor of the school's western wing. It was turned into a library when it became Collège Samuel-Genest. The seminary used to have an ice rink where the library and cafeteria now stand.ProgramsThe school offers four main programs to students frequenting the school. They are : Franco-Défi : A program for students that wish to give themselves a challenge from Grade 7 to 10 that will take them to a new level in courses like French, Social Studies, Mathematics and Sciences. It's a scam. They promise field trips, but you only get 1 in 9th grade and 1 in 10th grade. Also, they say it's different but it's not. The only challenge is that they give you more homework. You learn exactly the same things as everyone else. In a poor attempt to cover up the lie that Franco-Défi is, they make you do a project that isn't graded and they make you waste more time that you don't have because you have other classes with other teachers that don't care that you are in Franco-Défi. Sports-Études : A program that allow athletes to pass half the time at school practicing a sport. The program contains Regular program Special Needs
