With the closure of D.A. Gordon Public School and the transitioning of Grade 7 and 8 students into Wallaceburg District Secondary School come September, a new era in education will begin in the community.
Jim Costello, the director of education for the Lambton-Kent District School Board, said preparations are well under way.
“We’re going to be doing some work outside at WDSS,” he said. “I believe they are going to build in a play area… there will be an outdoor basketball court. This is like what we did for the students out in Ridgetown for the Grade 7 and 8 students. It will be in the spot where they had the parking lot for St. Clair College.”
Costello said workers were inside WDSS for about a month and a half before school was out for the summer, getting the rooms ready.
“They were in very good shape,” he said. “We were moving one wall, and there was some wiring work to do to get them ready.”
Costello said the school board is awaiting word from the Ministry of Education, in order for more capital projects to be completed at WDSS.
“We have a capital request in with the Ministry of Education for some significant dollars,” Costello said. “We had an $8 million request that was denied by the Ministry, but we put in a modified, lower request. We’re still waiting to hear from the Ministry on that. If we get that, then we can do more modifications inside WDSS, in terms of fitness, computer labs, that kind of thing.”
Costello said some work is being conducted at A.A. Wright Public School to prepare for more students, as the majority of D.A. Gordon students will be transitioning across town to join the Wildcats.
“As far as A.A. Wright, there will be three portables on site come September,” Costello said. “One of the problems with this type of scenario is you try to project a number, but we’re hearing from people saying that they may move. So you may project a number that is X, but it may end up being X plus 15. We usually say we will know when we see the whites of their eyes in September when we see the kids, then we’ll have a really good feel for it.”
Costello said they know A.A. Wright will be packed, and preparations are being made for possible expansion of the school.
“We know we are going to be tight at A.A. Wright,” he said. “We know we are going to have some portables, we’re doing some work inside the library and moving around some classes. We have spoken with our trustees and they have indicated at the transition meetings that if we need to build an addition to A.A. Wright, then we’ll have to plan for that and find funding for it either through the Ministry or through our own resources. We’re well aware of that, but we need to see who is going to show up first of all, we need to see the hard numbers that we have. We know that we’re going to need at least two portables, we have three there now.”
School starts across the Board on Tuesday, September 2.
Here is a story showing the new boundaries for the Wallaceburg schools:
