Bylaw Allows for Gladstone Reno’s
Prince George, B.C. – Gladstone Elementary School will be getting an expensive facelift in the near future.
This after the School District 57 Board of Education passed the Capital Project Amendment Bylaw for Highglen Montessori school at last night’s meeting.
The school of course was destroyed by fire back in the spring of 2013.
The bylaw was made possible after the Ministry of Education approved up to $2,965,277 in capital funding under the School Protection Program to address costs associated with the fire loss.
The money will cover the $350,000 cost associated with the demolition of the building while the remaining $2,615,277 will be used for the renovation of the Gladstone Elementary School building in College Heights.
Trustee Brenda Hooker said her initial hope was that Highlen would be rebuilt on it’s old site but also said “in our current fiscal climate” that was clearly not possible.
The Board also approved the agreement between the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George and School District 57 to cooperate in and coordinate the planning and programming of curricular, extra-curricular and community use of the Eastline Activity Centre which is located next to Giscome Elementary School.
The dual purpose building opened Monday (the RDFFG gave its approval at a meeting last month).
And finally KPMG presented the findings of an audit of the Board’s financial statements for the 2013/14 school year.
Audit partner Corey Naphtali says it revealed actual revenues of $135 million and a deficit of around $1 million but says the district saved $800,000 during the teachers strike while Board Chairperson Sharel Warrington says the rest was made up with surplus funds from the previous year.
Comments
Was the Highlen School NOT INSURED?
if it was one would think there would be no problem getting it rebuilt…
Something doesn’t sound right with this set up
Don’t tell the local crooks that the schools are uninsured
I agree with all the above.. All buildings are insured… or supposed to be. Where did the insurance money go???
Gladstone was a temporary measure for those students.. Hope those parents get together and go after the District for the money to rebuild.
All schools and facilities in the District are insured under the School Protection Plan (as noted above). “The Schools Protection Program (SPP) originated and is administered and delivered by the Risk Management Branch (RMB) of the Ministry of Finance, in conjunction with the Ministry of Education. – from their website)
As mentioned at the meeting last night that the board was advocating for the rebuild at the original site but quickly learned that the self insured model did not work like your home insurance. The Ministry of Education through its capital division would ultimately make the decision if they are going to rebuild, renovate and/or leave everything as is.
Last night the board passed the bylaw to access the $2.6 million that government is providing to fund renovations to Gladstone and in turn making it the home of the Montessori program in SD57.
– Tim Bennett
Ok so the parents of the Montessori program knew that Gladstone was a temporary location and is now an inconvenience for many parents because it is located in College Heights. So when Highglen was the school for the Montessori program what did parents do who lived in College Heights or even on the Hart? Complained about the location I bet but they still dealt with it. So deal with the location, its been over a year now and if a closed school was still in decent shape for renovations TAKE IT! Too bad this couldn’t have been finalized for this school year!
It is unfortunate the school wasn’t rebuilt. It takes away from the current neighbourhood. Also, I do see the issue of location. Highglen is more centrally located. College Heights is really not a feasible location for anyone living in the Hart. Hopefully if PG gets a larger population base, we could see Highglen rebuilt.
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