People Speak, Board listens: New school to be built in Sharbot Lake, LOLPS to remain open

Jeff Green | May 20, 2010

The Accommodation review process for the Sharbot Lake Family of Schools has been completed, and planning for a new Kindergarten to Grade 12 school at the site of the current Sharbot Lake High School will now begin.

But as the new school is being planned, money will also be spent upgrading the two schools in the region that will be remaining open: Clarendon Central in Plevna, and, as of Monday Night, Land O' Lakes Public School (LOLPS) in Mountain Grove.

The decision to keep LOLPS open was the single largest change between the draft report of the Limestone District School Board’s senior staff, which was released in February, and the senior staff's follow-up report, which was released on Monday night, May 17, and was readily accepted by a committee that was made up of the entire Board of Trustees

Ruth Bailey, the coordinator for the Accommodation Review process, presented the report. She pointed out that input from a public meeting at Sharbot Lake High School in early March was a factor in the decision to keep LOLPS open.

Transportation issues were a major consideration.

“One issue that was raised by many people was transportation ride times, particularly the feeder time for current Land O' Lakes students who would be travelling to Sharbot Lake. Those ride times were only marginally acceptable,” Ruth Bailey said.

“Distance can also be a factor in students participating in after-school activities,” she added.

Transportation was also noted by the follow-up report as a rationale for the decision to locate the new school at the current Sharbot Lake High School site, instead of in Mountain Grove or Parham.

In considering ride times to Parham as opposed to Sharbot Lake, the report said; “Transportation ride time is increased for the majority of students by 20 minutes. This is especially critical for students in the Plevna area.”

School board officials have met, on site, with both the building department of Central Frontenac and an official from the Mississippi Valley Conservation Association to confirm that the current Sharbot Lake High School site can accommodate a new school of the size that is being contemplated by the board

On Monday night, Ruth Bailey also talked about the flexibility that has been shown by the Ministry of Education in this case, which is making it possible to fund a new school while keeping two other schools open.

“The mnistry is eager to see the Sharbot Lake building project go forward and has allowed the board greater flexibility with regard to employing portions of some other funds for this project,” she said, quoting the report. “They recognized that building a small K-12 school in a rural environment is significantly more costly than is accommodated though the funding model.”

The upshot of this is a project that will end up costing close to $17 million.

In addition to $12.8 million in funds that were already committed to the project by the Ministry of Education in 2009, a total of $2.15 million that is held by the Limestone Board in two separate funding pools, (a New Pupil Places Reserve Fund, and an Energy and Efficiency Fund), will now be permitted to be used for this building project. This is a change in policy by the Ministry of Education.

The Ministry of Education has also confirmed it will directly fund the cost of demolishing the current Sharbot Lake High School, estimated at $1.6 million.

As a result, the estimated $14.175 million cost of building a new K-12 school for 239 elementary and 220 secondary students, as well as $1.1 million for renovations to Clarendon Central and Land O'Lakes Public School, and $1.6 million for demolition can all be completed without creating a deficit situation for the Limestone Board.

To say that Ann Goodfellow, the school board trustee for Central and North Frontenac, was pleased with the contents of the report would be an understatement. “I feel this report proves that we have all listened to the community. I feel this meets our future needs and balances our fiscal responsibilities. And I cannot express how exciting it is to see this amount of money going to our community. The fact that that the board has understood that we are a major part of the school community is particularly gratifying,” she said.

Helen Brown, the Chair of the Board of Trustees, said she wanted to “commend the PARC committee for all the work they undertook, and commend senior staff for taking a look not only at the PARC materials but also at the public input that we received.”

Trustee Barb McLaren, who was the Chair of the PARC committee, said “I still have a bit of an issue with the location. I see the Hinchinbrooke site as favourable.”

After approving the report and sending it to the board to be rubber stamped, a relieved Anne Goodfellow made reference to the stress this has caused for her as a community member and a school board trustee as the prospect of multiple school closings was being considered. She said, “This is good. Now I don't have to move.”

In the gallery sat the parents of two young Land O'Lakes Public School students. “And neither do we,” said the father.