Planned Ste Anne school may not be built

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/03/2024 (425 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Wab Kinew made it known in December that his government will likely abandon the plan to build Ste Anne and eight other schools by September 2027 using the P3 (public-private partnership) model and opt for a more government-run approach.

Now the future of the vocational high school is uncertain, according to Seine River School Division (SRSD) superintendent Ryan Anderson.

“Information is now being shared that those schools in terms of budgeting for those schools that were approved by the previous government were not taken to treasury and therefore weren’t budgeted to some degree,” he told the board of trustees during a March 12 meeting, adding that they’re not sure which schools will be built.

“But there’s at this point no guarantee at this juncture that the school in Ste Anne is secure.”

After receiving this news, trustees voted to send a letter to Minister of Education Nello Altomare requesting an information meeting and tour of the Ste Anne school complex that houses Ste Anne Immersion, Ste Anne Elementary, and Ste Anne Collegiate.

A 15-acre parcel of land had been bought for $1.3 million in 2022 in a residential subdivision off Caledonia Path east of the school complex. The immersion and elementary school were to fill up the space left after the high school moved to its new facility that was to have dedicated vocational programming space.

Ste Anne Collegiate has a capacity of 400 and a current enrolment of 390. The new school would have room for 500 to 700 students, depending on how many classrooms are included due to growth in the area and incoming students from elsewhere in the division or from other divisions that SRSD made an agreement with. Administration had already been in talks with French school division DSFM (Division Scolaire Franco-Manitobaine), which has a school on the same street as the Ste Anne school complex.

The former PC government announced the new school with an included P3 funding model to be completed by September 2027, which was opposed by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). P3 models use private companies to design, build, and/or maintain public infrastructure

Before the Oct. 3 election, SRSD administration had scheduled meetings with ministry staff Oct. 6, and again later in October. Those meetings were postponed and have yet to be rescheduled.

Ward two (St. Adolphe, Iles des Chenes and Lorette) trustee Christine Roskos said the board needed to show the minister the whole division’s need for the vocational school in Ste Anne.

“Considering the one school that we used to send our students to… is full, and that’s in Hanover (School Division), and that’s no longer excepting students. And so the options for our students are few to none,” said Roskos during Tuesday’s meeting.

With files from Jordan Ross.