By Tina Comeau
THE VANGUARD
NovaNewsNow.com
The Tri-County Regional School Board is concerned that the plot of land on Forest Street that a new Yarmouth high school is being built on isn’t large enough.
Specifically, the school board says the proposed bus loop for the school, as designed now, is not large enough to allow all buses to park on the school grounds at the end of the day to pick up students.
Superintendant Phil Landry says you would only be able to fit about half of the buses in the cue to pick up students, with the other half tying up traffic on the road in front of the school. You can’t, he says, have large groups of students walking to buses parked on a street.
The only land the province has “purchased” to put the new school on is land that was owned by the town. The land was turned over to the province for the sum of $1. There was other adjacent land owned by a local businessperson, but the province opted not to purchase any of that land, saying, at the time, it was too expensive. According to the school board, an attempt by the province to purchase additional land from the Yarmouth Wesleyan Church fell through.
The board, however, is not satisfied with the way things are.
“We can’t put all of our buses in the bus loop. There will be 17 buses and we can only put half of them at a time. We’ve got major concerns,” Landry says. “We want to talk to the province . . . it seems like we’re putting our largest school, our largest student population school, on a postage stamp.”
The board hopes to meet with provincial officials about the situation in the next couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, at the board’s March 2 meeting, some board members expressed frustration on how slow the pace of the project seems to be moving. The new school was announced in the spring of 2008, with a “sod” turning taking place in December of that year.
The province has said that the school will open in the fall of 2011. When asked whether that is an achievable goal, Landry said he thinks it is. But there are concerns that must be addressed before any construction begins he says. And, as of yet, there is also no date for the calling of tenders.
