St. Vital parent council pushing for replacement of 73-year-old school in ‘heartbreaking’ condition

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This article was published 28/11/2024 (691 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Families with children attending a school off St. Mary’s Road that is “past its due date” by almost 50 years want the Manitoba government to fast-track construction of a replacement.

The Manitoba School Boards Association said the provincewide pileup of deferred maintenance is “dire.”

A parent advisory council at École Varennes is organizing a petition and letter-writing campaign that stresses the need to address aging infrastructure and related safety concerns.

“You want kids to have a sense of pride in their school,” said Carol Johnson, who called the state of the building where her Grade 4 grandson is a student and his mother teaches “heartbreaking.”

Johnson said she’s heard about the temperature in classrooms, none of which have air conditioning, getting up to 36 C and a child suffering heat stroke.

The building, which offers kindergarten-to-Grade 8 French immersion, opened in 1951. Its life expectancy — according to the original blueprints — was set to be 25 years, given it was hastily constructed in response to the devastating Red River flood and related damage to area schools a year earlier.

“Varennes is past its due date,” Johnson said, adding swift action is required to prevent serious incidents and make the school more “user-friendly.”

A 2022 building condition assessment said major, costly renovations to its envelope and structural, mechanical and electrical systems were overdue.

“This could be a public safety issue,” states an excerpt in the report by Tower Engineering Group about corrosion that has affected the stability of the exterior.

At the time, the contractor said it would not be “fiscally responsible” for the Louis Riel School Division to use more taxpayer dollars to upgrade the aging site that has undergone multiple additions.

Jeff Anderson, assistant superintendent of policy, planning and research for the division, said air conditioning and air flow are key concerns, especially during hot days in south-facing classrooms on the second floor.

“There’s a period of time where learning is at a minimum. The students are trying their best. Teachers are trying their best, but just dealing with the environmental conditions in the building are a challenge,” said Anderson, who was the school’s principal from 2008 to 2015.

Ongoing issues range from middle-years students not having a washroom nearby to the inability for spectators with mobility challenges to climb stairs to watch sports from a mezzanine area, Johnson said.

The grandmother noted that space constraints require students to leave the building for home economics and other hands-on activities, and that cuts into their instructional time.

The LRSD board of trustees made a new school “a priority capital project request” in June 2022. An architecture firm had finalized a design by January 2023.

The list of deferred maintenance is decades in the making and transcends governments, said Sandy Nemeth, president of the Manitoba School Boards Association.

While acknowledging the importance of investments in health care and housing, Nemeth said the government needs to be reminded that school infrastructure planning and material costs are on the rise.

“The longer these projects (sit), the more expensive they get,” said Nemeth, a longtime trustee in LRSD, referring to everything from leaky roofs to boiler replacements.

Manitoba Education is “constantly evaluating” the infrastructure needs of 700 public schools across the province, a spokesperson for Tracy Schmidt, acting education minister, said in a statement.

The spokesperson said capital project requests from LRSD are under review and that involves analyzing enrolment trends, school capacity and space across the division.

Brian O’Leary, deputy minister of education, will contact the Varennes parent council to hear about families’ concerns directly, they noted.

Johnson got involved in community organizing because she was struck by the difference between the playground at 22 Varennes Ave. and others in the area.

She said she is in awe of the modern, bright and accessible outdoor infrastructure at General Vanier School, a nearby K-8 English school, and wanted to see about updating Varennes’ grounds.

When she spoke to her son-in-law, trustee Ryan Palmquist, Johnson said she learned a new building was a priority and would need to come first. She then contacted the parent council.

Varennes community members were planning to collect signatures and promote letter-writing at a school event Thursday evening.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca