A new elementary school is being planned by the Southeast Cornerstone Public School Division, and they have received $1.3 million in planning money for the new build.
“We have a full year to plan what this new state-of-the-art building is going to be. We know it will be a pre-Kindergarten to Grade 6 building. Preliminary plans are to partner with the City of Weyburn to include some recreational facilities as a part of the new build,” said Lynn Little, director of education for Cornerstone.
Once the new elementary school is built and completed, Haig School and Queen Elizabeth Schools will have their staff and students transferred to the new elementary, and then their current facilities will be closed.
Now there is also an opportunity for Souris School families to be included in the transfer. “We are projecting that this new building won’t be ready for students for another couple of years.”
“With that, we looked at Souris School, which is at a 70-per-cent capacity right now. The structure of Souris School is very sound, which is why one of our plans years ago was to upgrade that facility to meet some accessibility issues at the school,” said Little. “What we do know, is that since the province is now responsible for funding new builds across the whole province, because Souris has a sound structure and it is not at capacity, there will not be an opportunity to upgrade that building at this time.”
“We felt that this would be a great opportunity to ask Souris School parents and families if they would like to be a part of the new elementary school project. The parent community at Souris will be looking at that for the next little while and providing us feedback on their thoughts.”
Cornerstone has not yet tendered out demolition of the former Weyburn Junior High facility. They are expected to use part of their unrestricted surplus to finance the demolition.
