By Justin Dionne

Planning underway for school in Kensington area

Mar 6, 2019 | 4:30 AM

It’s looking like the Kensington neighborhood will be home to a new school.

The Grande Prairie Public School District and the Grande Prairie and District Catholic Schools have been seeking more school sites in the southwest area.

Superintendent of the Catholic School District Karl Germann spoke during the Infrastructure and Protective Services Committee meeting on Tuesday saying they plan to get a school in the area as the population there is expected to grow.

“The city is trying to create a lot of affordable housing, and the Kensington neighborhood is one of those neighborhoods,” says Germann. “When we had a look at the student population that’s expected to be in the area, we sent a request in to the city wanting to make sure that we had a school site in that area as well.”

The city committee made the decision to only accommodate one school site on the piece of land in Kensington.

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Germann notes the school district sees the need for a new school in the area within three to five years as all of the south schools are full.

“For sure we were interested in it, I know our partner board (Grande Prairie Public) was also interested in it because we both have healthy populations that would require the use of additional school sites in the area.”

Germann explains some of the staff doing the design and planning for a new facility are taking off to Vancouver to meet with a school board which has built a school that’s similar in size to what the Catholic School Division has planned.

“We’ve looked at the preliminary designs, looked at the philosophy and are trying to emulate that as one of the ways to attract more people to the city. If there’s a school like that in Vancouver, it might also draw more people to Grande Prairie when we’re looking at trying to attract a variety of people from professional trades or careers.”

Germann adds the next step is to have a meeting between the Public and Catholic School Districts to look at ways they can work together to build a school.