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Fewer new Waverley West schools set

By: Nick Martin

Posted: 07/2/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Mega-suburbs have failed to set off a massive wave of school construction -- and demand for new schools in the largest mega-burb has been scaled back.

Waverley West will need only four kindergarten-to-Grade 8 schools and one high school, said Pembina Trails superintendent Lawrence Lussier.

The initial plan had been for six K-8 schools -- one in each neighbourhood -- and one or two high schools.

"We have revised our predictions of what will meet our needs. We're saying four K-8 schools and one high school," Lussier said.

Pembina Trails is in discussion with the province over where and when the first elementary school will be built.

"I wouldn't necessarily call it a disagreement. The ongoing discussions are how many schools do we need, and where do we want them," Lussier said.

"It all depends on the population."

There are 400 students living in Waverley West, dispersed among 20 schools.

Pembina Trails had designated schools in the eastern part of the division -- some east of Pembina Highway -- but now Waverley West students are finding room elsewhere, Lussier said.

There is also the longer-term possibility that the Division Scolaire Franco-Manitobaine will seek a school in Waverley West. So far, the DSFM has only one Winnipeg school west of the Red River, and that's in Assiniboia.

Enrolment pressure has eased off so much that a parent and resident group that had lobbied for years for a fifth high school in the Whyte Ridge or Linden Woods neighbourhoods has not been heard from for several years.

Meanwhile, Louis Riel School Division only sees the need for one school in Sage Creek so far, said superintendent Terry Borys.

"We are planning a K-8 elementary school for Sage Creek. There's not been a lot of work done yet," Borys said.

Sage Creek students have been travelling to schools in Windsor Park to find empty seats.

"It's growing rather quickly. The community is becoming anxious to have a school as well," he said.

"For the near future, the next 10 years, one school will probably support our needs in Sage Creek," he said. "I'm not sure how we'd be able to support more than one," given the province's finances and the empty desks elsewhere in the division, he said.

River East Transcona has requests on the books for a new high school in the west part of the division and an elementary school in St. Clements, but neither is near the top of the division's capital wish list, said a division official.

Seven Oaks, which has been adding 400 to 500 students a year for several years, is awaiting opening of a new school in Amber Trails and hoping for provincial approval of another school in Riverbend.

Neither Winnipeg nor St. James-Assiniboia school divisions is asking for a new school.

However, WSD has a long-standing high school site on the west side of King Edward Avenue in the division's far northwest corner, and has seen enormous growth through immigration in that part of the division in the past year.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 2, 2012 B2

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