Parents from the St. John the Evangelist Catholic School community agreed by unanimous applause at a meeting Monday night that they wanted a new school building for their children.
"We need more real classrooms, not portables," said Dave Bennett, newly elected as chair of the school's Catholic School Advisory Council. "We need a new school and a proper sized gym." With Metrolinx's Weston tunnel construction now slated to begin in September for about a year, the 500 students at St. John the Evangelist will be relocating to the former Brother Edmund Rice near Old Weston and Davenport roads starting next school year.The school community hoped the transit project to bury the air-rail link tracks between King and Church streets could coincide with plans to build a new school on the same site in order to avoid potentially relocating students twice."We do not want to return to the same crowded school for who knows how long," said Bennett.The Ontario Ministry of Education had committed to providing future funding of $5.6 million to build an addition to the Weston Road and Church Street area school for 290 pupil places. But an additional $6 million is required to build a new replacement school for 600 students.The Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) submitted a business case to the ministry for a new school, confirmed Angelo Sangiorgio, TCDSB associate director of planning and facilities. He added the board is currently working with an architect and consultant to do a feasibility study for a replacement school to support the business case."Hopefully by April we'll have an answer on the additional funding," said Sangiorgio, but noted if the ministry doesn't approve the business case, the school board must decide if it wants to spend the extra $6 million from its budget for a new school building.Once funding is in place, Sangiorgia told the crowd of about 80 people at the community meeting that it normally takes 12 to 14 months to get city approvals including design work, and another 12 to 15 months for the actual construction of the building.York South-Weston MPP Laura Albanese acknowledged the community has been in need of a new school for a long time."I'm very proud of the fact we have the initial commitment for funding," said Albanese, adding whether the ministry will provide the extra $6 million will depend on how solid the business case is.In the meantime, parents expressed concern over the school bus schedule and the safety of their children being transported to Brother Edmund Rice, located eight kilometres from the community. Kevin Hodgkinson, TCDSB co-ordinator of transportation services, said they mapped out a number of different scenarios to effectively transport the students, which included reducing the number of stops, increasing the number of buses and dedicating a couple of buses just for kindergarten students.In each case, it took about 40 minutes to take students to Brother Edmund Rice.Hodgkinson noted they did a "dry run" last Friday during the snow storm and the results confirmed the projected transportation time."Safety is the most important thing for the board," added Sangiorgio, noting the board already transports 25,000 students board-wide on a daily basis. "We've done it before and we've done it safely."