New school to be first built in 30 years

It’s now full speed ahead for School District 60 as it hopes to have its first new stand-alone building in more than thirty years, completed by the winter of 2017.

Education Minister Mike Bernier was in town this week and the Peace South MLA, along with his Peace River North counterpart, Pat Pimm, and Mayor Lori Ackerman put 24.8 million dollars in government funding on the table for the construction of a new northwest sector elementary school and gymnasium.

The province is providing 22.3 million and the City another 2.5 million for the gym, which will be bigger than those usually associated with an elementary school, so it can be used to help alleviate the pressures on existing recreational facilities.

The 4,000 square metre school will create 365 new student spaces — 40 of them for kindergarten students –and the decision to build it is a direct result of local area economic development pressure.

Given the forecast of that pressure increasing significantly, and adding to the already numerous and associated economic concerns of the school district, Superintendent Dave Sloan views as a major plus, having the Peace River South MLA as Education Minister.

Here’s an edited response of what he had to say, when we asked him if Mr. Bernier’s visit this week resulted in any discussion regarding another of those concerns, student busing costs: