It’s an announcement Wedgeport had long waited for and it finally came Monday, April 30, when the province released its multi-year school capital construction plan, which includes a replacement for École Wedgeport.
The project’s estimated start is listed as 2019-20, according to the capital plan, which was announced by Zach Churchill, the minister of education and early childhood development.
Parents and others in the Wedgeport area have long been calling for a new school, citing a variety of issues with the existing facility, which dates back to the early 1960s.
“I’ve toured that school myself with members of the community, parents and a member of the school board and it’s obvious that we need a new facility there to accommodate that community,” Churchill told the Vanguard after Monday’s announcement.
Argyle-Barrington MLA Chris d’Entremont, who has been very vocal about the need for a new school in Wedgeport, welcomed Monday’s news.
He credited a community action committee chaired by Kelley LeBlanc for doing a great job drawing attention to the school situation in Wedgeport.
“The school is in desperate need of repair and we want to see this work done sooner than later,” d’Entremont said. “These students have put up with a lot over the years. I’m glad to see it’s finally on the government’s list.”
Wedgeport is one of 13 communities that will get new schools or major school renovations over the next several years.
The projects include a new elementary school for the Clare area that will replace four schools, two of which are slated to close at the end of the current school year. The estimated start for construction of the new Clare school is 2019-2020.
Last summer the Conseil scolaire acadien provincial (CSAP) announced two of its Clare schools – Saint-Albert and Jean-Marie-Gay – would be closed after the 2017-18 academic year. Students from those schools would be transferred to the Stella-Maris and Joseph-Dugas schools, respectively. The latter two schools would close in the summer of 2022, with a new Clare school to open in September 2022.
Referring to the province’s school capital plan, Churchill said, “All the schools on the list, the intention is to have them completed in the next five years, so this is the first multi-year capital plan that we’ve had, and this gives us a target in terms of timing and completion.”
There were things that didn’t make it onto the list, he said, “but we’ve got a list here that we think we can achieve and it fits within our financial framework. It’s also going to be a rolling list.” In other words, he said, the five-year plan will be updated each year, so new projects could be added from one year to the next.
The province is also purchasing two P3 schools in Cape Breton that had previously been identified to be returned to the developer. The total investment is estimated at $300 million.
This is in addition to six capital school construction or major renovation projects currently underway, and 37 P3 schools that the government previously committed to purchase, announced last fall.
"Having a multi-year plan is in direct response to recommendations from the auditor general and Dr. Avis Glaze's report to provide a more predictable, long-term capital plan," Churchill said in a government news release. "We're putting schools in communities that have critical facility needs and most importantly, our students will get modern facilities designed with their program needs in mind."
Schools are chosen based on the priorities submitted by the Regional Centres for Education and the CSAP. Every school on the multi-year plan was noted as a priority by the regions in which they are being built, the government said. Final selection is determined by enrolment pressures, facility condition and available funding.
