Education Proposed francophone school in valley ranked fifth in importance by district

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John Pollack
Telegraph-Journal

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ROTHESAY - School District 1 was scouting locations Thursday for a potential temporary elementary school in the Kennebecasis Valley, but a decision on when a permanent one could be built remains up in the air.

A French parents group has been lobbying for a French school in the valley for a few months and has convinced the district it needs to happen, but the future of the proposed school depends on funding from the province.

But the district, which operates 15 French-language schools in southern New Brunswick and is responsible for an area covered by seven different anglophone school districts, has other priorities on its list. The valley school is trumped by four school building projects in the Moncton area.

"We just finished with Fredericton and Saint John a year ago," superintendent Anne-Marie LeBlanc said. "Our needs in infrastructure (are) very strong. We have 14 mobile classes in the Moncton-Dieppe area."

The first priority for the district is the expansion of Sainte-Thérèse School, a Dieppe school for students from kindergarten to Grade 2.

"It's called the expansion of Sainte-Therese School, but it's practically a new school that we hope to be built," LeBlanc said. This would be in two phases opening the next two Septembers.

Priority number two is a new school in the north of Moncton to open the fall of 2010 and would replace some of the mobile classrooms in the city, LeBlanc said.

Next on the list is an add-on to Sainte-Bernadette School in west Moncton, which the district hopes will be done by September 2011 if the province provides the money.

"We've added three mobiles this year (to Sainte-Bernadette)," LeBlanc said. "And we're predicting we'll need to add two more next year. We're taking a lot of playground area."

The district's fourth priority is to add on classrooms and expand on the library at Moncton's school complex that houses Odyssée high school and the Mascaret middle school.

Next on the list is the proposed Kennebecasis Valley school.

"We hope to buy the land in 2010, by 2011 we have the architectural plans and that we could open the school in September of 2012," LeBlanc said. "Their need is not put on number five because we find it's a fifth priority, but because we need to be strategic in our planning."

Despite a $13-million renovation project last spring that added 73,000 square feet of space to Samuel-de-Champlain, where valley students currently go, the school is at capacity and may require two mobile classrooms in the fall. This, along with attention from the French parents group, has caused the district to consider a temporary school in the valley, but it hasn't changed the priority list, at least not yet.

"Anything is possible," said Michel Côté, District 1 council member responsible for the Kennebecasis Valley. But he wouldn't comment on how realistic a possibility it is.

"I would like to see it go to number one priority, but I can't tell that the district education council would do that," he said. "The project is very, very important for the district education council, and the other four projects ahead of us are really important too."