New St Adolphe school and leaky roofs on SRSD capital requests

Schools are full and buckets are being used to catch rain water, which is why Seine River School Division (SRSD) has a long list of urgent capital projects it would like the province to consider.

While a new vocational high school in Ste Anne is at the top of the list, SRSD is also asking for a new kindergarten to Grade 8 French immersion school in St Adolphe’s Tourond Creek neighbourhood.

“One of the things that we’re struggling with is that we see that St Adolphe might be a place where we can have some growth because St Norbert is getting full, and we don’t have any space in St Norbert to build a school or add on. And so perhaps some of that overflow might find its way in St Adolphe,” explained interim superintendent Reg Klassen at the Sept. 24 school board meeting.

“And of course St Adolphe also has quite a few number of students that are part of that very southern part of Louis Riel (School Division) [where] our school is their home school simply because of proximity.”

Klassen then went on to list the other capital requirements in the division.

“All of these are required now. They’re (listed as) 2026 but they’ve been on the docket a while,” he told the board.

A lot of roofing replacements and fixes are needed in SRSD and across the province thanks to a bunch of schools being built around the same time decades ago, according to Klassen, who called it “the bane of the Education department of finance.”

Schools and the age of their roofs that need replacing listed by Klassen include Ste Anne Elementary (1960), Arborgate School (1960) in La Broquerie, Richer School (1977), Dawson Trail School (1966) in Lorette, St. Norbert Collegiate (1968), and La Salle School (1991).

“In Richer, where they’ve revamped their old gym which is now the music room, their principal was telling me about all the pots they had to place there when they had that big rain. It finds its way and the roof just can’t manage,” said Klassen.

“And we’ve got structural stuff: ripped veneer, water entering the school at Richer; music band room heaving ESNI (École St. Norbert Immersion); a replaced 1969 brick veneer CSNC (Collège St. Norbert Collegiate); and then building envelope, whole front of building water entering building Arborgate; systems replacement, septic field Richer,” listed Klassen.

“During that big rain, we had to go get a truck and get out there to empty the septic tank because there was so much water that the water was actually finding its way into the septic tank and filling it up. And so for a while there, we had a day there where we suddenly weren’t sure we’d have a septic tank that was too full and we wouldn’t be able to use the toilets.”

École Lorette Immersion and Dawson Trail School need new boilers for heat.

There were also other renovations and additions at Parc La Salle School, St. Norbert Collegiate and École St. Norbert Immersion.

Klassen suggested an advocacy or lobbying committee be formed to continually ask the province for help with the division’s capital needs as it continues to dig itself out of its deficit situation discovered last summer. No resolutions on the topic were passed by the board at Tuesday’s meeting.