Province changes mind, allows portable classrooms

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This article was published 26/10/2020 (1529 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After rejecting repeated requests for portables from the Pembina Trails School Division, the province has pulled a U-turn and promised to deliver two trailer-classrooms to address overcrowding at a south Winnipeg school.

School trustees and administrators celebrated the announcement at a board meeting last week — seven months after the subject prompted South Pointe School parents to fill the boardroom to voice their concerns about a plan to tackle overflowing classrooms.

The dual-track kindergarten to Grade 8 school was designed for 875 pupils. Enrolment is currently 976.

Instead of initially approving portables, the Public School Finance Board had asked the division use all empty seats in its borders while respecting the 60-minute bus ride trip limit.

Superintendent Ted Fransen said Pembina Trails never stopped asking for the portables and recently, the province had “a change of heart.”

“We’re very excited… It means we will be in a better position to accommodate the growing community,” Fransen said.

He said he is optimistic they will be installed in September 2021.

Parent council president Crystal Webster welcomed the news, but said she has questions about where the portables will be placed and how outdoor play areas, which are often used by the community, will be affected.

Webster is also curious about whether students from the Richmond West and Fairfield Park communities will be affected.

Earlier this year, Pembina Trails administrators recommended trustees end a South Pointe grandfathering system for French immersion students from the two communities to address capacity constraints. Families were irate about the plan, both because it would have required some of them to switch schools and they didn’t initially have a chance to provide input.

In March, the board voted to hold off on making significant changes; instead, it indicated French immersion classes would be above class size guidelines.

Pembina Trails has accepted the most new students of all 37 public school divisions in the province for the last four consecutive years. Last year, the division recorded 491 new students compared with 2018 — a 3.4 per cent increase in total enrolment.

Fransen said two new schools (in Bridgwater Lakes and near Prairie Pointe and Bridgwater Trails, respectively) are in the queue to ease the division’s growing pains.

Manitoba Education did not respond to requests for comment.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie