By Katie Ryan
Ecole St. Thomas Elementary School has been bursting at the seams.
The increasing interest in French Immersion programming has forced teachers to give up their staff room at the school for additional classroom space. The school library not only houses books and other tools for learning, but also serves as a regular classroom for the school’s growing student population.
Students and staff are not complaining when it comes to their lack of space however – especially with Premier Wall’s recent $95 million announcement that the province will receive five new schools, of which one will be a replacement school for St. Thomas.
“This news is welcome news and is really a light at the end of the tunnel for us,” said Mme Lisa Kreese, Ecole St. Thomas principal.
“The students are no worse for wear, they are learning wherever we’ll take them. We’ve had such phenomenal growth and our staff have really embraced that growth, weathering the facility challenges that go along with it.”
The new school is the culmination of two years of “intense” work achieved by the division, board of education and the provincial government. After local MLA Tim McMillan was elected just over two years ago, he met with both the public and the Catholic school boards and learned of their school capacity concerns.
“Both of them have similar issues on the number of students they have in their schools and it’s a good problem to have,” said McMillan, adding that two LPSD schools are now listed in the province’s top 20 priority schools. “We’ve got a growing community, but it’s incumbent on the government to make sure that when there are crowding pressures, new schools are built and portables are provided.”
St. Thomas’ new school has a tentative location secured southeast of Holy Rosary High School and will support current and future French Immersion students.
“We are growing at a rate now of over 40 students a year,” said LSCD director of education Doug Robertson, referring to the division’s high interest in French Immersion Programming.
Roberston, Kreese and LCSD board chair, Laurie Makichuk were present in Saskatoon when Wall made the welcome announcement, which also included $5 million to support facility maintenance projects and block funding for modular classrooms.
Ground is expected to be broken for the new school in November 2010 and to relieve facility pressures until it’s complete, the existing St. Thomas will have modular classrooms on the east side for the interim period.
“This government has truly lived up to their words of supporting community and listening to what the people are asking for,” said Makichuk, who praised her administrative team for their hard work.
With 346 students, ranging from K to Grade 7 at St. Thomas, and a staff comprised of 20.4 FTEs, Ecole St. Thomas was listed as number three in Saskatchewan’s priority listing in 2009. All of the projects announced will receive $6 million in government support to complete the plans. The total cost of the new school is an estimated $15 million, of which the division must fund 25 per cent of.
St. Thomas’s replacement school project has been approved for detailed design and in the coming months the building will go for tender once the final design is approved by the ministry.
“We are attempting to really focus in on language development and what that might mean in a particular building,” said Robertson of the new school. “The learning centre is obviously going to be a hub of learning activity where we have essentially brought what was previously distributed throughout the building into the learning studio. That will house what would traditionally be the library, special education services and small group breakout rooms.”
Ecole St. Thomas students learned of their new school Thursday afternoon with a special announcement.
“The real winners with this announcement are our students. They really deserve this, just their energy and their enthusiasm – we are so pleased for them,” said Kreese.
The existing Ecole St. Thomas School will be liquidated when the new school is open.