The New Westminster school board’s goal of starting construction on a new high school by next summer became a lot less pie-in-sky this month after a letter from the education ministry provided a couple clear timelines.
Dated June 3, the letter from assistant deputy minister Shanna Mason said the ministry planned to review of the district’s project development report within six to eight weeks and be in a position to request funding from the provincial treasury by the summer.
The district is already on the hunt for a project manager, according to superintendent John Gaiptman, and plans to have its request for qualifications (the first step in finding a design-builder) ready to go as soon as funding is announced – something Gaiptman expects by November.
“And then you’re talking about four to six months’ work, and then shovel comes to ground,” he told the Record.
Built in 1948, NWSS was approved for renovation or replacement in 2003, and by the time Gaiptman arrived in New West in February 2014, it had become local residents’ most pressing education concern.
“People would say, ‘Welcome to the district. When’s the new high school going to be built?’ There would be no breath in between,” Gaiptman said.
He said both he and the board met with various provincial officials, telling them that New West residents felt the project had stalled.
Those meetings paid off, according to board chair Jonina Campbell.
“I cannot emphasize how much the ministry has really worked so well with us in the last year,” she said.
The high school replacement, with an estimated $110 million price tag, is “the most costly and complicated replacement project undertaken in the K-12 system to date,” according to the ministry’s June 3 letter, but it’s also been a long time coming for the community, according to Campbell.
“Everyone is really excited about a new high school,” she said, “and so we’re going to balance having enough time for consultation and planning with also the understanding that we really want to get going on this school.”
This summer, meanwhile, the district will spend $50,000, not including labour, to wash the school and paint its doors and window trim.
It’s a decision Gaiptman said he thought a lot about.
“There are two factors that come into play,” he said. “One, is that we’re in a neighbourhood, and people have to look at the school and feel good about the school…and, number two, just because it’s going to be torn down and replaced, we paint on a regular basis, and so we have to factor that in that, even schools that we expect will be replaced, have to be maintained until they are replaced.”
That hasn’t happened in the case of NWSS in the past, according to Gaiptman.
“It’s going to take three years to build this school,” he said, “and, like anything else, you don’t leave anything for three years or, in this case, significantly longer, and expect people will take the same amount of pride in it.”
