Dave Sullivan
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (May 16/01) - Yellowknife Education District No. 1 is playing musical chairs with its eleven portable classrooms.
It agreed to rent three of them to Yellowknife's Catholic School Board for temporary relief to overcrowding at Ecole St. Joseph, and it looks like others will have to be added to N.J. Macpherson school, which is also getting full.
Superintendent Dr. Judith Knapp says it's unclear who has control over seven of the portables at Sir John Franklin high school -- the district or the territorial government, which still owns the school grounds.
In April the Koinonia Christian school asked to rent one of the portables but it appeared unlikely the board would know the answer by the requested May 15.
The district's four remaining portables -- two at Mildred Hall and two at J.H. Sissons -- will be needed by those schools.
The school board just got its knuckles rapped from the territorial government for not charging enough rent to the Tree of Peace Friendship Centre, for one of the portables.
"Is the Tree of Peace paying its way for the portable school that it's using or is Yellowknife No.1 subsidizing it? If the latter then it's time to ensure full cost recovery," David Gilday, GNWT's career development director wrote in a May 1 letter to the board's trustees.
