The Upper Grand District School Board is inviting public comments on a boundary review it has launched for a new school that’s to open in September 2014 on the city’s eastern outskirts at Lee Street and Cityview Drive North.
An initial report on the review by board staff, which went to last week’s school board meeting, can be viewed at www.ugdsb.on.ca/lee, a news release said.
A second staff report, which will list alternative scenarios for the attendance area of the Lee Street school, will be distributed on March 16. A public information meeting at Ken Danby school will follow on March 22, the release said. The school board plans to make a final decision in May.
The new school will relieve overcrowding at Ken Danby, which is facing enrolment pressures related to new residential developments in the eastern part of the city and to full-day kindergarten, which will come to Ken Danby in September 2013. The board is planning an $850,000 extension to add two new classrooms at Ken Danby for kindergarten pupils before then.
“One of the primary objectives of the review will be to create a balanced enrolment between Ken Danby and the Lee Street school. Currently there are five portables on the Ken Danby site,” the release said.
For the 2013-13 school year, the school board is considering an interim plan that would see some students bused to King George school for one year, rather than going to Ken Danby that year. They’d go to King George for one year, until the new Lee Street school opens, the board says.
The new King George school, which opens in September 2012, has been temporarily designated as a “holding school” while overcrowding issues in the board’s East Guelph region are resolved.