Students at West Sechelt Elementary School may be closer to getting out of portables and into a permanent building now that the Ministry of Education has invited the district to move forward to the second stage of the expansion project funding request process. “It’s encouraging that we’ve at least been asked to proceed to the next stage,” said Nicholas Weswick, secretary-treasurer for School District No. 46 (SD46). “The West Sechelt expansion has been number one [priority] in our capital plan for a number of years.”
At last week’s SD46 board meeting, Weswick announced the Ministry of Education has asked the district to submit a more detailed proposal, outlining need, costs, risks and benefits, engineering, design, permit requirements, environmental requirements and other factors affecting the project’s scope, schedule and budget.
For several years the district has been asking for capital funds to expand the overcrowded school, which has seen enrolment increase beyond the capacity of the permanent building, with classrooms spilling into more than four portables on the property. A fifth portable is expected to arrive within the next week.
To deal with the growth, the district reduced the catchment area in 2014 to ease enrolment rates, and shortly after the district put in a request to expand the school to add between four to six classrooms.
The recently requested project definition report will give the district a better idea of different options for site mapping, since expanding the school will require it to encroach on school property currently used for other purposes. A request for more parking might also be included in the detailed proposal. The deadline for the report is October and Weswick said parents with children enrolled at the school will also be consulted as part of the process.
District staff have “ball parked” the project to cost between $2.5 and $3 million. “We did put that number in our capital plan, but at this point it’s really a rough estimate,” said Weswick.
Once submitted, the Ministry of Education’s capital department will consider the proposal, and if successful, pending its priority in the list of applications from all districts and provincial treasury approval, it could receive capital through a project funding agreement.
Other schools in the district have recently received funding approval for smaller capital projects. Roberts Creek Elementary will get $750,000 for boiler upgrades and $800,000 will go to Cedar Grove Elementary for a boiler replacement and an air handling unit.
