How the school renewal budget will be spent on the five public elementary schools in town, as well as Alberton Central, is something the Rainy River District School Board’s facilities review committee will be looking at after it discusses feedback from stakeholders at its meeting here June 12.
The committee, which was formed earlier this month, now waits as principals and schools councils meet to give and gather their input on what needs improvement in their respective schools–even if it includes closures.
“The purpose of the facilities review committee is to take a look at the best way to spend our renewal budget on the schools with input from the stakeholders,” said committee chair Terry Ellwood, who will take over as board superintendent in August.
“We’ve spread out a range of options as to what options are open, and it’s a wide spectrum,” he said. “The range of possibilities go from a suggestion to retrofit all existing schools with the money all the way to amalgamating school populations into a new school or schools.”
Ellwood noted stakeholders have been discussing everything from safety to transportation to pedagogical (classroom performance) factors when considering what should be done to the schools.
Education Director Warren Hoshizaki stressed stakeholders were crucial to any recommendations the committee may make. “We’re trying to ensure everyone is involved,” he said. “If we’re going to create a new school, if it comes to that, everyone should be involved.
“They’re very important decisions, and I don’t think we’d be being honest with people if decisions were made without this kind of process,” Hoshizaki added.
The committee already has received presentations from Murray Quinn, the board’s superintendent of plant and maintenance, as to the condition of local schools, and Chief Financial Officer Laura Mills, who spoke on the financial options open to the committee when the time to make a decision comes.
“We looked at everything. What kind of implications any changes would have on students, staff, transportation, all aspects,” said Ellwood.
“There’s lots of research involved here, conducted with much expertise,” he added. “Murray Quinn took light samples, efficiency tests for school heating and air exchanges–it’s very thorough.”
This data, collected by the pupil accommodation committee over the past year, formed the many possible choices the committee has left open to the various school councils.
Following the meeting June 12, the committee hopes to at least have a rough idea for a recommendation, which then must be sent to the board’s pupil accommodation committee for approval.
“Our goal is to eventually, by the fall, make a recommendation as to how the money will be spent,” said Ellwood. “But its the trustees [on the pupil accommodation committee] who will decide.”
The sub-committee includes principals and school council chairs of Robert Moore, Alberton, J.W. Walker, Huffman, Sixth Street, and Alexander MacKenzie, as well as Ellwood, Mills, Quinn, and Hoshizaki.
Fort Frances Times
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