Redcliff schools included in PRSD’s three-year capital plan

By Justin Seward
Prairie Rose School Division No.8  (PRSD) unveiled their three-year capital plan for division school priorities between the years of  2018-2021 at last Tuesday’s regular meeting. Burdett School is the top priority, while the future Redcliff Middle School, Parkside School, South Central High School and Foremost School rounded out the list. “We continuously monitor the deficiencies at our buildings,” said Ryan Boser PRSD No. 8’s  secretary treasurer. “We do the best we can to provide as much information as possible to the government when we submit these capital plans to assure they have all the accurate information when making their decisions and you get to a point as a division that you get to do this on an annual basis and you hope one of your projects will be selected.”
Boser said in Redcliff there is the concern of  programming shortfalls for the Career and Technology Foundations (CTF) program as students are being bussed in from other areas for the different courses.  The hope is with the possibility of a new middle school or the modernization of Parkside School in Redcliff, it will address getting the programming such as shop and foods into Redcliff where students can take those options locally. Another concern is the near capacity of the Redcliff Mennonite Alternative Program (RMAP) and PRSD’s solution is to move Parkside students into the future middle school  and there would be space opened for the RMAP program to move into the Parkside school.  If the Redcliff Middle School gets the go ahead then it will begin construction in 2018-2019 as a part  of the Town’s Eastside Development because of the growing enrollment demands.
“We get to look at the schools’ utilization rates on an annual basis to determine if our enrollment numbers are starting to get towards that 100 per cent mark,” said Boser.
“We’re always in conversation with our administrators at the school level to determine  whether there are any capacity issues as far as being able to hold programs in schools.”
Parkside School  needs a complete moderation’s to address deficiencies including a mechanical upgrade, an electrical distribution upgrade, an HVAC System installed in the south wing and an upgrade on the interior and exterior finishes.
PRSD No. 8’s director of maintenance, Darrell Drefs said the whole south wing has no ventilation and in the summertime if it’s 35C  outside then it will be the same in the building, while the boilers in the basement are old and projected to be the problem and will need to be replaced, however, there are six boilers and the school runs on three of them.
Additionally, there are sewer problems from the school out to the road as it plugs up often and the server is a storage closet and the doors have to be opened before it overheats.
The estimated cost could be around $2.2 million in 2019-2020. If a middle school were to be built then there would be an estimated cost of just under $14 million with construction starting in 2018-2019.
Burdett School will have to go through a complete modernization at a cost of over $2.4 million in 2018-2019, South Central High School is in midst of getting a value management analysis with the possibility of getting an HVAC system installed in the gym at an estimated cost of over $ 5 million in 2020-2021. Foremost School will look at a a value management analysis for 2020-2021 at an estimated cost of $3.9 million.