REGINA - A location has been chosen for the new joint use elementary and high schools in east Regina.
The schools will be located in the Towns neighbourhood in Regina’s southeast. According to the province’s announcement, the joint-use elementary school will accommodate 1,400 students with 800 for the public school and 600 for the Catholic school. The nearby high school is to accommodate upwards of 2,000 students.
The school builds will also provide 180 additional child care spaces, with the allocation still to be determined between the elementary and high schools.
Dignitaries at the announcement Monday on Arens Road in Regina included Education Minister Jeremy Cockrill, Mayor Sandra Masters, and a number of other government ministers and school board officials from Regina's Public and Catholic divisions.
This latest announcement comes a month after the announcement that work had commenced on the west side of Regina for the new joint-use elementary school in Harbour Landing. Both Harbour Landing and The Towns areas are the fastest growing areas in the city of Regina and among the fastest growing in the province, with existing schools struggling to handle the major growth in population and enrolments in those areas.
When asked about how the province was addressing the higher enrolments, Cockrill replied this was “exactly what this announcement is all about.”
“A couple of weeks ago we were down in Harbour Landing and able to move that project to the next milestone," Cockrill said. "This announcement here today to announce the site for a joint use elementary school and joint use high school, I think it really highlights really the growth that we see in Regina and in the province. And I would just say the cooperation over the last several months between Mayor Masters’ office and myself and the Ministry of Education, city of Regina, our local school boards here has been fantastic. We know this is a growing part of the city, we know that this is a growing city and a quickly growing province, and so we’re trying to respond to that as quickly as we can and advance this project as quickly as we can.”
Mayor Masters pointed to the exceptional growth of the area. She noted there had been a need for a new high school in the area for the past decade.
“What was surprising I think was in the last four years was a request for another joint use elementary school, but hats off to both school boards… it’s as important as the high school now, given the growth on the east side of the city.”
The chairs of the public and Catholic school boards both welcomed the announcement of the new schools, also pointing to the growing population pressures.
"Schools in our division are very full,” said Regina Board of Education Chair Sarah Cummings Truszkowski. “We’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got. It’s not perfect. I’ve been talking with the Saskatchewan government to make sure we keep getting announcements like this, so we can keep building the schools when we need them, and we need this one desperately.”
“We’ve been having extreme challenges with regards to population of schools across the city, but particularly in this end of the city,” said Regina Catholic School Division Chair Shauna Weninger. She pointed to one of their schools having to have additions done two years in a row.
“This is an extreme celebration for everyone that lives on the east end of the city. But the important thing that we need to take forward as school boards is that it’s our role to make sure that we hold everyone including ourselves to account in making sure that we have these celebrations before they’re overdue. And I believe we are well overdue on this announcement.”
Later that morning, NDP Leader Carla Beck welcomed the new schools announcement, but pointed out the new high school was something that had been on the books since her own time on the Regina school board.
“This is a school we have known is needed in southeast Regina for a decade,” said Beck. “As I said to something else recently, it’s about time. This is a government that hops to it when it’s close to an election in this province, but spends a lot of times in the weeks and months and years in between not addressing concerns. This is a much needed school, the students at that school have been raising concerns… there have been students shipped out to other schools. It’s absolutely needed. I’m glad to hear that it’s been announced. I hope the government does more than just announce it and actually gets some shovels in the ground to get that school built.”
There is not a timeline yet on when shovels will go into the ground for the schools. Cockrill said the next phase is to design the schools and ensure they have the amenities they need.
