Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 26/02) - Yellowknife Catholic Schools could build another 400-to-500-student school as soon as 2005.

Superintendent Kern Von Hagen has already begun lobbying city hall to set aside a plot of land at the Yellowknife Correctional Centre for the proposed school.

"The costs of not planning for a new school are obvious: lack of school spaces, lack of school choices, slow development of the city as a whole," he told council this Monday night. "We need to do productive, constructive, partnered planning together."

Early estimates for the school call for a facility with a similar capacity to Weledeh Catholic school that would cost between $10 and $13 million to build.

However, Von Hagen warned that boom-time construction prices could mean that "it might bleed a little more than that."

Projected enrolments for Yellowknife show the city's student body growing by about 750 in the next eight years. Numbers calculated by Yellowknife Catholic Schools extrapolate 2005 enrolment at 4,037 and growing to 4,401 by 2010. There were 3,673 students in 2000.

Existing schools -- both public and Catholic -- can accommodate a total of 3,941 students at 85 per cent capacity, and 4,173 at 90 per cent capacity. The usual threshold for building a new school is 85 per cent.

The Catholic board is fixed on the correctional centre site because of its location and potential development costs.

"We're looking at community access, how it serves population density," said Von Hagen.

"We think that the location we're suggesting works simply because of the access points (Old Airport Road and Franklin Avenue) and development costs in that area would probably be far less than ... in some of the other locations."

But the debate lines may be drawn over the location.

Mayor Gord Van Tighem said council still has to decide on what to do with the correctional centre site, which will be vacant in two years.

The city will begin looking again at its general plan in the near future. Locations for a new school will be determined in part by zoning allocations in the general plan.

As for the correctional centre site, Van Tighem said the question that needs to be asked is:

"If it's located there, does it best meet the growth patterns?" he said.

"What we have to look at, is, do you want five schools within six blocks of each other in a city that's growing in other directions? Does that make sense in the long run?"

Another question is that of financing.

Education, Culture and Employment Minister Jack Ootes said his staff are currently reviewing capacity numbers before allocation decisions are made.

"I'm understanding of the (YCS) position and certainly we'll do our best to move things forward," said Ootes.

"You can understand that as minister I have the responsibility to have the appropriate work done."