The new north Chatham catholic elementary school is officially under construction.
Students, staff, parents, and guest speakers held a ground breaking ceremony this afternoon on McNaughton Avenue West across from St Clair College.
Deb Crawford, the Director of Education, says the next step is to create a community.
“So we put together a transition committee that consists of teachers, students, and we’ve got a Superintendent leading that. So this team is all coming together – we’ve had groups collaborating with us around the design. So now it’s about the transition – what it;s going to look like as we go forward,” says Crawford. “We’ll be doing a lot of activities in the upcoming school to year to bring the teachers and students together so that by the time we move into the new building, we’ll already be a community”.
The new school will be housing English students from St. Vincent, St. Agnes, and Our Lady of Fatima Catholic schools.
French immersion students will be consolidated at the current Our Lady of Fatima building, which is undergoing renovations.
Crawford says consolidation was the best option to tackle handling the aging buildings and declining enrollment.