Recently, Education Minister Don Morgan announced that the Government of Saskatchewan will be purchasing 46 new relocatable classrooms across the province, with the classrooms expected to be in place for the start of the 2016-17 school year.
This announcement includes four classrooms for Chinook School Division that will complete the Ministry’s original plan for École Centennial School in Swift Current. This last phase is a result of the original build, designed for 400 students, with a plan for the construction of additional classrooms when the initial prediction of 500 students was reached. Chinook is now projecting 520 students at École Centennial for the fall of 2016.
The Chinook Board of Education expressed appreciation for those involved in ensuring the school reached the point of completion as planned. “Now that we are finishing up with the last phase, we would like to recognize our Chair at the time, Randy Beler, for setting the stage for this project,” said Chair Larry Caswell, “The Ministry kept their commitment to add the space once they saw the projected numbers were actualized. We thank them for their responsiveness in addressing the growth of the population, as the completion of this project is crucial to addressing the enrolment increase in the attendance area the school serves. We also would like to recognize the efforts and abilities of our Director Liam Choo Foo, for keeping the need for this addition in front of the Ministry so the student capacity could be added in a timely manner.”
École Centennial School, a dual track Kindergarten to Grade 8 English and French Immersion school, opened in September 2014 with over 450 students, and now have approximately 500 students in the building. The numbers have exceeded projected enrolments each year and with the residential expansion of the École Centennial catchment area where young families are moving in, the enrolment is expected to continue to grow over the next few years.
UPDATE: Education Minister Don Morgan announced on March 1, at Chinook's 10th Anniversary event, that the classrooms for École Centennial will actually be permanent additions to the building, not relocatables. Minister Morgan acknowledged that Chinook has realized their projected enrolments and the Ministry needed to come through on their original commitment with the extra classrooms. Those plans are in place as of today and Chinook is hoping to be tender-ready within six weeks.
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For more information, contact:
Joanne Booth, Communications Coordinator
Chinook School Division
Phone: 306-778-9200 Ext 218
jbooth@chinooksd.ca
