Parc_09-08

Jeff Green | Feb 26, 2009

The Program Accommodation Review that is underway for the Sharbot Lake Family of Schools is the third that the Limestone District School Board has undertaken in the past year.

The first two, in Kingston East and Greater Napanee, started up in April 2008, and the committees submitted their draft reports to school board staff on January 13, 2009.

Although the process in both cases was similar to the one underway for students at Hinchinbrooke, Land O'Lakes, Clarendon Central, Sharbot Lake Public and Sharbot Lake High School, in both Kingston East and Napanee the Province of Ontario came forward early on in the PARC process with a commitment to fund the construction of new schools to house all the students in the regions that were under review.

With this incentive in place, the Kingston East PARC ended up submitting a recommendation that the two schools under review (Lundy's Lane and J.E. Horton) be closed and a new school built on a building lot that the school board owns in a neighbourhood called Greenwood Park.

The Napanee PARC dealt with three schools: HH Langford, Sandhurst and Westdale Park. At first they considered recommending that one school be built in place of the three, which is what the provincial funding would cover, but after taking this proposal to public meetings and some further debate, the PARC ended up recommending that two new schools be built.

They made further recommendations about how the two-school option might be funded, which included partnerships with community groups and municipal involvement.

The draft recommendations of the Kingston East and Napanee PARCs is posted at Limestone.on.ca under the Accommodation tab.

At this time there has been no commitment from the province to fund any new schools in Central and North Frontenac. A plan to build a replacement school for Prince Charles Public School in Verona is also on hold until the PARC has completed its work.

The next public meeting for the so-called Sharbot Lake PARC is scheduled in Plevna at Clarendon Central Public School at 7:00 pm next Tuesday, March 3.