Overcrowded Moncton schools top education council priorities

The Anglophone East district education council approved the list of school projects it would like the provincial government to fund in the coming year on Tuesday evening.

The list includes some upgrades and possible consolidation of east end schools, but chair Tamara Nichol says overcrowding at Northrop Frye and Evergreen Park schools remains the top priority. 

"We have exponential growth in the north end," Nichol said in an interview on Information Morning Moncton on Wednesday.

"We don't have enough room in those two schools to maintain the current catchment area so we need to do something and that's what this north end study is going to look at, because while there's growth in the north end there's not growth in some other areas of our city."

A review of school boundaries for nine schools in Moncton by Ernst & Young is under way.

Northrop Frye, Evergreen Park, Magnetic Hill, Birchmount, Beaverbrook, Queen Elizabeth, Edith Cavell, Hillcrest and Bessborough schools will all be part of the boundary study.

"Once we get the results back from that study at the end of September the district education council will make a determination at that time as to how we will move forward," Nichol said. 

The second priority for the DEC is a mid-life upgrade for Bessborough School, a kindergarten to Grade 8 school in the west end of the city.

Nichol says the DEC is also asking for a boundary study of schools in the east end of the city where consolidation is being considered.

She says students at Sunny Brae Middle, Forest Glen and Mountain View could be housed in a single new school.

"The truth is we don't really know what is the best thing to do in those areas," Nichol said.

"What we do know is those schools, as they are, need mid-life upgrades but before we go ahead and begin a big request for that we really need to know what is best to do in that area." 

Anglophone East schools need $67M in repairs

Nichol says the list of capital projects needed at schools in Anglophone East continues to grow and the bill for repairs alone now sits at approximately $67 million.

She says there is no way to know what the provincial government will decide to move forward with.

"So we do have a list that we go by but since we don't have the control or the money to do the projects ourselves, once the recommendations are made, at that point it's out of our hands — it's up to government."

Nichol says there may be schools in other parts of New Brunswick that are in worse condition than schools in her district.

"It's not necessarily about each district getting a pot of money, it's now become about what schools need the most attention first."

Nichol says final decisions from the provincial government on funding are expected to take at least a couple of months.