The Editor,
Re. "Nice school, but" (Letters, The Tri-City News, March 5).
On behalf of the School District 43 board of education, I would like to respond to the above-referenced letter.
Our new Moody middle school is funded as a capital" project as part of the provincial seismic mitigation program. All funds from that program must be used for the specific purpose of building the new school and cannot be used to fund items mentioned in the letter, including reducing class sizes or providing breakfast programs. Funding for these types of expenses come out of a district's operating budget while funds received from capital are not permitted to be used for operating expenses.
As a district, we are working to stretch every dollar and our new schools are certainly no exception. The funding that we are provided by our government to build the school, by construction standards, is actually very low in comparison to other similar buildings.
Our design team process is extensive and involves teachers, students, school administrators, district staff and facilities staff. Together, we work with the goal of creating first-class learning environments for our students.
We build to LEED Gold standards, which means that they meet a high standard of environmental sustainability.
We have clearly heard from area residents that they want our schools to be hubs for the community and we strive to provide space that can be used not only by our students but by the community as a whole.
I am glad the letter writer is "impressed by the beauty of the proposed new Moody middle school" because our staff has worked diligently on this process. In short, we want our community to be proud of its new school.
Ivano Cecchini,
School District 43
