Public School Board to address overcrowding issues.
Posted Feb 7, 2011 01:49:21 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Several schools in the Ottawa Carleton District School Board are struggling with over-crowding issues including three in Kanata.
In the Glebe at the Fifth Avenue Public School several attempts at temporary solutions have been made and they are not enough.
The next step could be to move the roughly 80 incoming junior kindegarten students to another location to give the board time to create a long-term solution.
Rob Cambpell, the school board trustee for the zone covering the Glebe and much of the downtown, said they have tried just about everything to combat over crowding
“The teacher’s lounge has been converted into a classroom, 40 per cent of the library has been lost to a classroom and two very large classrooms have temporary dividers in them turning them into four classrooms now,” hd said.
He added that the grounds are too small to support portables and that the playgrounds are too small as it is.
Incoming junior kindegarten students could go to Mutchmor Public School for the fall of 2011 while the board works on its long term solutions. They would then go to Fifth Avenue for kindegarten.
“If we had to, it’s a pattern that can hold for quote unquote two years,” he said.
That would give a bit more time to design and implement the long-term changes.
Campbell said the board hopes to begin changes by fall 2012
This could include anything from relocating gifted programs to reviewing school boundaries.
There will be public meetings held Feb. 15 and 16 ahead of a final decision on temporary solutions by the board expected on Feb. 22.
