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Cornerstone gets funding for Weyburn elementary school

The Southeast Cornerstone School Division got the green light to proceed with the new elementary school in Weyburn, with the budget released on April 10 giving the first fiscal year’s funding of $12.2 million.
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The Southeast Cornerstone School Division got the green light to proceed with the new elementary school in Weyburn, with the budget released on April 10 giving the first fiscal year’s funding of $12.2 million.

The initial plans for the school are now being finalized in the design development stage, said Andy Dobson, facilities and transportation director, who said if everything goes well, the project should be underway by September.

The school’s total cost will be an estimated $24.8 million, with the balance of the funding to come in next year’s budget. The school division is planning for a total of 22 months construction as they aim to have this school open by September 2020.

“We’re going through the fine details of the school now, and the architects are working on the design,” he said, noting these should be done by July so the school division can go to tender in August, with work to get underway by September, including the demolition of the former Weyburn Junior High School building, which will be the site of the new elementary school and the city’s recreation and culture building.

As far as the empty junior high building, Dobson said the school division could take it down now, but they want to have it included with the project under the general contractor, particularly because proper compaction of the site will be important for this school. This will be important as the Ministry of Education has indicated they do not want any crawl spaces underneath the school building, as there was underneath the junior high building.

Asked if Cornerstone was able to take any lessons from the Weyburn Comprehensive School project, Dobson said there are lessons that could be applicable, although the Comp was a different project, involving both new construction and renovations, and building while students were attending classes, which created logistical problems.

For the new elementary school, it will be completely new construction and no students will be on the site until the school opens in 2020. Once opened, Queen Elizabeth, Haig and Souris Schools will all be closed, with those students to attend the new consolidated elementary school.

One practice the school division will do, which was a lesson taken from the Comp project, is they will prequalify the general contractor and sub-trades.

The City of Weyburn, meanwhile, will piggyback with the same general contractor who builds the school, and the new recreation and culture centre will be built at the same time.

For the school division itself, they were given a slight 1.7 per cent increase to their operating budget, which won’t quite make up for what had been cut in the last two years, said Shelley Toth, chief financial officer for Cornerstone.

“We’re encouraged the government is starting to restore the funding they had cut last year,” she said, noting the province had cut three per cent last year, and 2.1 per cent the year before that, so this year’s increase won’t quite replace the deficit they will be in. “At this point, we don’t know if it will help to bring it to a balanced budget for next year.”

The board of trustees will now finalize the budget for the 2018-19 year, which has to be to the Ministry by June 20th.