The Holy Family Roman Catholic Separate School Board has received one-time funding from the provincial government, as an advance to their Phase 2 capital project at St. Michael School, to pay for their architect fees.
Cal Martin, superintendent of finance for Holy Family, updated the board on the details of Phase 2 during their monthly meeting on Wednesday. The final floor plan for the pre-Kindergarten to Grade 9 school has been finalized through teachers and other staff at both St. Michael and St. Dominic.
Martin noted that the goal for Holy Family was to tender out the construction of the Phase 2 project by the end of this month.
Firstly, the addition of six classrooms to the east hallway of St. Michael School will be constructed. Martin noted that these classrooms should be done by the end of the year, and ready for a Christmas reshuffle of other classes in the facility.
Because the core area of the school will receive renovations, after Christmas the classrooms in the north wing (by the offices) will be relocated to the completed east hallway in order to reduce the impact of construction disruption.By building the six classrooms first, it gives us flexibility with the least amount of impact (to the students) with construction to the school itself, explained Martin. In regards to the classes currently at St. Dominic, They will be moved over when the facility is ready. Our goals is to have the (St. Michael) facility completed by Sept. 1, 2011.Benefits of the new facility for Holy Family include the fact that it will have everyone into one building, which will be an upgraded facility, said Martin. It also gives us the ability to address things like renovating our computer labs, libraries and home economics areas.
Other upgraded areas will include a multipurpose chapel area, a small multi-purpose area for lower grade physical education classes, and a stage in the gymnasium (with a soundproof door). Of course, in the chapel area, the plan is to respect the sanctuary of the area, and other uses will be in line with the Catholic faith such as choir and music classes.When I think of church, I think of music and I think of choir. I do not think of teaching, and I do not think of (regular) classes, explained Martin. He added that the chapel area would allow Father Gerry Bauche to be brought into the school and promote Catholic teaching.To accommodate parking requirements, a new area for staff parking will be created along the southeast edge of the property. In front of the property a bus corridor will be created, to ensure a reduction of problems to drivers on 13th Street. Martin added that from the bus loop, I do not believe students will be using the main entrance. The younger grades will access one entrance and the higher grades will access their entrance.Holy Family does have a plan for the St. Dominic facility, once students are moved over and the Southeast Regional College is done requiring the temporary classroom space. Their hope is to renovate the facility into their main Weyburn office.
Martin explained that We need to look at the whole picture of turning the school into office spaces. (The office) would be a place to house our maintenance, and our Internet technician (IT) department without having to have them within schools.
Additional information from the board meeting on Wednesday, included a presentation from executive members of the Saskatchewan Catholic Schools Board Association. President Jerome Niezgoda and executive director Ken Loehndorf reported on a number of initiatives Catholic School Boards across the province are involved with.
One area that was highlighted was the Catholic permeation project, which Holy Family has been involved with. As the curriculum are developed by the Ministry of Education, the Catholic School Boards Association has a committee that permeates that curriculum with Catholic information, explained Shelley Rowein, director of education with Holy Family.
To date permeation has occurred at the Grade 6 to 8 level, and will continue with Grade 9 health and English language arts and Grade 8 science.
Holy Family also received information that classes from Neuman College (a Catholic-based college in Edmonton) will be recognized and may be used for teacher classification.
As Holy Family plans for fall linkage session, trustees brought back information from a recent general assembly with the Sask. School Boards Association that focused on advocacy with public engagement. One area that we will be exploring is strengthening and supporting our linkage with our School Community Councils (SCCs), explained Rowein. Trustees from the board have had a linkage with representatives with the SCC and it was a very valuable information sharing system.
