School board to decide on nursery school

The Fort Frances Nursery School will find out this week whether it can continue with plans to build a room on to the expanded J.W. Walker School.
The Rainy River District School Board will discuss the nursery school’s plan as part of its regular monthly meeting Tuesday starting at 7 p.m. at Rainy River High School.
The board is slated to vote on a motion which supports in principle building an addition to the J. W. Walker project on the condition that an acceptable financial and operational agreement can be made with the nursery school at no cost to the board.
Sandra Weir, who sits on the nursery school board, said they are confident the public school board will move forward with the plan.
“We have been getting a good response from them. We feel that hopefully they will support our idea and will take us on board with them,” she said yesterday.
In the meantime, the nursery school has been focusing on a number of issues, including ways to raise money for capital costs.
“We are still in the decision-making stages,” Weir said. “We have had great support and people are helping us a lot.”
Currently, the school pays $297 a month in rent to the school board for use of a classroom at Alexander MacKenzie School. They no longer will have that space available once that school closes at the end of next year.
If they were to build a room on to Walker, the nursery school would have to cover operational costs, maintenance, and cleaning as well as the capital costs.
“They estimate the operational costs to be $5 a square foot on an annual basis. Cost covers utilities and cleaning of the facility,” she said.
The group is looking at building a space about 1,000 square feet in size.
“We haven’t finalized any details or created any designs at this point,” Weir noted.
The nursery school will meet again Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. at Alexander MacKenzie to discuss the next steps following the school board’s decision Tuesday night.