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Province offers reasons for Moncton school site decision

New Brunswick's education department considered building a new school on the grounds of a facility it will replace in Moncton's west end, but rejected it because there wasn't enough space.

The province plans to build the new kindergarten to Grade 8 school beside Bernice MacNaughton High School.

It will replace Bessborough and Hillcrest schools. Both were built in the 1950s in the neighbourhood between Wheeler Boulevard and Vaughan Harvey Boulevard.

Parents and politicians criticized the decision, saying it moves the school to the edge of the neighbourhood.

The Anglophone East District Education Council called for the department to explain its decision.

Tony Weber, the department's director of facilities and pupil transportation, outlined the province's selection process at a DEC meeting held online Tuesday evening.

Jacques Poitras/CBC
Jacques Poitras/CBC

Weber said the Bessborough and Hillcrest grounds are too small for a school with up to 800 students, a soccer field, outdoor play space, parking and dedicated areas for buses.

"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 said.

The province's site selection guidelines call for a property with about 24 acres. Bessborough's grounds offer 4.1 acres, while Hillcrest has 4.57 acres. The MacNaughton location has 21 acres.

Province of New Brunswick
Province of New Brunswick

Weber said the department also seriously considered wooded land along Millennium Boulevard. He said that site would be the next best option to the one picked, but it's the only one of the four not owned by the province already.

Weber said the purchase price was "in the millions, plural. It wasn't cheap."

He also said soil testing found contamination from when the area served as a rail yard, something that would need to be cleaned up before building a school.

Province of New Brunswick
Province of New Brunswick

Two potential school configurations were considered on the Bessborough site, one that would require purchasing a nearby daycare to increase the available area.

Buses would need to park on the street and potentially block traffic under both configurations, Weber said.

The small parcel would require building up to three floors. Weber said the scale doesn't match the single-family homes in the area and can be a problem during fire alarms. He said elevators aren't on during alarms, posing risks for people with disabilities on an upper floor.

Neither configuration would leave space for potential expansion in the future if there's a need for more classroom space.

Province of New Brunswick
Province of New Brunswick

Both configurations would require temporarily sending Bessborough's students to other schools in the district already at or above capacity while a new facility is built.

Without the additional land, a soccer field couldn't be oriented on the land to keep sun out of the eyes of players.

Meanwhile, Hillcrest's property wouldn't have room for a sports field.

Building the school near MacNaughton would allow the province to sell the Hillcrest and Bessborough land.

Overall, he said the MacNaughton has less challenges.

Weber said the department knows the location, which isn't centrally located in the neighbourhoods like the two schools it will replace, means more students will need to be bused.

Weber said they planned the school expecting it would need space for eight to 12 buses.

However, he said the department didn't calculate how many students would now need to be bused and the associated cost because students can no longer walk to school.

Province of New Brunswick
Province of New Brunswick

"Parents want their kids to be able to walk and bike to school," Norval McConnell, a DEC member who represents those schools, said after Weber's presentation.

James Upham, chair of the Hillcrest Parent School Support Committee, said some parents are worried about their children crossing St. George Boulevard, a four lane road where drivers often speed.

"This is going to create - I think - some fairly significant issues with traffic," Upham said.

Weber said they're now working with the city on ways to deal with traffic, one of the negatives of the site selected.

He said the province owns vacant land that could be used between the high school and Centennial Drive to the east to create a second entrance.

The presentation to the DEC came the same day as the release of an auditor general report that found successive governments have made site selection decisions that are not always evidence-based or objective.

Dominic Cardy, the education minister, also spoke at the start of the DEC meeting. Cardy said he approved the site recommended by department staff and the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure. He has said he won't reconsider the decision.