The Conseil Scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique (CSF, B.C.'s francophone school board) will help plan and design a new school to replace the aging École des Pionniers in Port Coquitlam.
The $22.8 million school will be built to house560 students from kindergarten to grade 12, andwill be constructed on the lots adjacent to the school, at 3550 Wellington St.
Roger Hébert, chair of the board of trustees of the Conseil scolaire francophone, stated in a press release that he is pleased with the news.
"It was urgent to provide the francophone students of this provincewith safe and adequate infrastructures and school premises for their education. We know thatmuch remains to be done for a number of other francophone schools, but today, we arecollectively very pleased with this excellent news."
When it was built in 1958, the Terry Fox Secondary School only met 45% of present-daystandards for earthquake resistance for public buildings. Between 1967 and 1977 and again in1992, a number of upgrades were carried out, however still not bringing the school up tocurrent seismic standards.
OTHER SCHOOLS
Meanwhile, School District 43 is waiting for more information about three seismic projects - two in Coquitlam and one in Port Coquitlam - after the province announced approval for upgrades to Minnekhada middle in 2014/'15 and Irvine elementary and Montgomery middle in 2015/'16.
SD43 superintendent Tom Grant said last week the district hopes to get enough funding to rebuild Minnekhada middle school.
"Hopefully we can convince them that new schools are cheaper to build than seismic upgrading," he told the board of education
NEW SCHOOL FOR MOODY
Meanwhile, plans are moving forward for anew middle school for Port Moody. The public is invited to have a say in what services should be provided in the neighbourhood learning centre (NLC) attached to the a new school for Moody middle.
Today, a meeting was planned to talk about the services that could potentially be included in the NLC.
Grant and Sinclair Architects are working on the design of the new school and siting options are being explored.
The new building is a replacement for the existing Moody middle and will have a capacity for 450 students. However, it won't be built until the new Heritage Mountain/Anmore middle school is completed.
