Summertime ARC coverage

A rarity during the summer break, but the Napanee Guide had a story posted Thursday regarding the choices before the Limestone DSB after an accommodation review covering the village and its surrounding areas.

The committee at first recommended the one-school option, which was subsequently followed by senior staff issuing a report also calling for the construction of one bigger school, as opposed to two smaller ones. Upon further review, and more public consultations, the PARC group changed its endorsement to that of the two-school option, and senior staff was asked to go back and re-examine some of the questions and concerns from the public.
That report was tabled on July 7 to the board's School Enrolment-School Capacity Committee.
The primary recommendation made was that "the Limestone District School Board build one new school (approximately between 600 and 630 pupil space) on municipal services, at the south end of Napanee, to address the accommodation issues at H.H. Langford Public School and Westdale Park Public school; and further, that all or almost all students ... currently attending Sandhurst Public School be relocated to Bath Public school; and that the funding allocated by the Ministry of Education be allocated to the construction of the new school, and alterations to Bath Public school."

The staff response indicated two schools weren't feasible, maintaining support for the committee's first one-school recommendation. In the current climate and Ministry of Education rules for capital projects, this is understandable. Quotes later in the story refer to programming and other reasons for the single-school preference. Quotes from the two-school supporters sound very rural-urban, which seems odd given Napanee is no metropolis.
Napanee's municipality would likely be among those receiving an invitation to the Community Schools Alliance.