No end in sight for fight over Moncton school location
The fight over the location of a new school in Moncton's west end is showing no signs of letting up.
Some parents who want the new school built on the current Bessborough school site have launched a lawn-sign campaign and a petition.
They are asking the province to reconsider the decision to build a new kindergarten to Grade 8 school next to Bernice MacNaughton High School.
"We're not going to give up," said Bettina Moores, who is spearheading the campaign and hoping for "a better resolution."
About 600 people had signed her online petition as of Wednesday afternoon.
On Tuesday, the auditor general released a report that found Education Department decisions about school capital projects were not always based on evidence.
"We're certainly concerned by the site selection process," said Moores.
Reasons for location revealed
And Tuesday night, a department official explained the reasons for the west end Moncton school decision at a meeting of the Anglophone East District Education Council.
Tony Weber, the department's director of facilities and pupil transportation, said the new school would be able to share amenities with Bernice MacNaughton, it was a neutral site at which to bring two school communities together and revenue could be generated by selling the land where the old schools are located.
He also said neither of the existing school sites was large enough for a new one and if the province was to build on one of those sites there were no immediate solutions to provide space for 600 students.
Moores said the presentation was "enlightening."
But she questioned why a new school should require 24 acres.
"Engineers need to start thinking outside the box," she said.
"We are caught in a square-peg-round-hole scenario. Instead of us creating a design around a site, we're taking a design and trying to fit it onto a site. Of course, that's not going to work. It seems bizarre to me. … It seems backwards."
Education future
Moore said other schools and neighbourhoods should be concerned.
Unless the policy changes, she said, aging Moncton schools such as Edith Cavell and Saint-Henri will be "in the same predicament in the very near future."
Moores agreed the chosen site has some good features.
But they are outweighed, she said, by safety issues, such as the need for students to cross four lanes of traffic on St. George Boulevard and by the fact that fewer students will be within walking distance and more will need to take buses.
"There was very little around either of those things in the presentation," she said.
Moores noted that there was no accounting for the cost of infrastructure that will be required to make the new school location safe for students, such as sidewalks and crosswalks.
The Education Department's position is that there were more safety issues with the alternate sites, and social or cultural considerations should not overshadow them.
"What questions are going to be asked 10 or 15 years later if there is no sports field, if there isn't a safe bus drop-off, if some parent child is permanently disabled and in a wheelchair because they didn't have a safe bus drop-off, and the reason for not having it was a cultural issue in a community?" Weber asked.
School size
Education Department guidelines call for at least 18 acres for a school plus one acre for every 100 students.
However, smaller sites are used in urban areas, said department spokesperson Tara Chislett.
"The minimum preferred lot size is one that can accommodate the components of a new school," Chislett said in an email.
"If there are no sites within the general location that can accommodate the school requirements, then other options are explored."
Moores contended that some of the "cons" listed for the Bessborough site "don't hold up."
For example, one factor counted against either existing school property was that the new school would be three storeys high, but the neighbourhoods they're in are low-rise residential areas.
Predicts developers will build higher
"We feel a three-storey school would be completely acceptable," she said.
"I'm sure developers won't have that same consideration," she added, speculating that the Hillcrest and Bessborough properties would likely be built up once the department sells them off.
Moores said she would like to see Moncton city councillors take a stronger position on the issue.
"We want a say in how the city grows."
And she plans to contact the new minister of local governance reform, local MLA Daniel Allain, who has promised to start the process of municipal reform.
"Before we make another decision that affects two longstanding communities, this is the time to consider those reforms."
