Riverview needs new school: parents
Gunningsville School students can't host upcoming Christmas Concert at school this year because of overcrowding
By Eric Lewis
Times & Transcript Staff
Published Friday November 28th, 2008
The Gunningsville School in Riverview has six classrooms but 10 portable classrooms in the back of the school and they are still running out of space.
Parents of youngsters at Gunningsville School in Riverview now have another point they can use to punctuate to the provincial government how desperately the east end of the town needs a new elementary school.
The school can't host its own Christmas concert this year because there simply isn't enough room in the building, which is filled to the brim with students.
Instead, the Christmas Concert will be held on Dec. 8 at Riverview Middle School.
While it might only be a small inconvenience, parents in the area say its another example of how badly a new school is needed.
Portables outside the school outnumber its classrooms, 10 to six, and the school's lunchroom doubles as its gymnasium.
For the last few years, parents in the east end of the town, which includes Gunningsville, Point Park, Bridgedale, the old naval base area and several new developments, have been crying out for a new school to replace the aging, overcrowded structure.
School District 2's education council made a new school in the area a priority item on its request list sent to the Liberal government in September.
The Department of Education isn't saying if a new school is coming or not. The province is expected to unveil its capital budget for 2009 next month. A new school, if it is on the horizon, should be mentioned in the budget.
Lana Hansen has a daughter attending kindergarten at Gunningsville and another daughter who will enroll in the school next year.
She has been spearheading a parents group, Riverview Residents for a New East End School, which has written letters and submitted a petition to the province's Department of Education, pushing for a new facility.
She says moving this year's Christmas Concert might only be a minor inconvenience for the school and parents of the students, but for the students, it could create a "disconnect."
"My child is so connected to the school now, and so proud of where her classroom is . . . to her, it's her little world, and to go somewhere else I don't think will be quite the same," Hansen says.
"You know, I'm a grown-up, I'm fine, but I just think, for the kids, it would feel more special to them if they were in their own environment."
It's not only parents hoping a new school comes to town.
The Town of Riverview supports the idea for a new school so much that it has already gone ahead and offered land to the province for a new facility.
Town manager Dave Muir says the town has two options on the table that the province could take advantage of.
The first involves 300 acres of town-owned land near the dam behind the old naval base.
The province could use some of that land for a new school.
Currently, there is no proper road going back to the area, but Muir says there are plans to someday build one.
An alternative, and perhaps a more attractive option, involves a developer in Riverview.
Muir says Romeo Goguen, the developer behind Carriage Hill Estates, a growing subdivision just past Point Park heading toward Lower Coverdale, has offered to swap land he owns with the Town of Riverview so that the town could offer his land to the province.
That land is accessible off Old Coach Road, Muir says.
"We sent a letter to the province (outlining the options), but the province hasn't gotten back to us on it," Muir says.
The east end of Riverview has seen rapid residential growth in the last several years. A decade ago, the area past Point Park on the right side of Hillsborough Road heading east wasn't much more than a giant, empty field.
Now, the area is bustling with hundreds of new dwellings, several new streets and many more on the way. Muir says it's safe to say hundreds more homes, free-standing and semi-detached, will be built in the area over the next few years.
The need for a new school is only going to get worse as time goes on.
The District 2 education council named a new school in Riverview their number two priority in September, just behind refurbishments to Moncton High School, says Aubrey Kirkpatrick, the district's director of finance, administration and communication. If the K-8 school is indeed going to be built, he says the district would "consolidate" the populations of Gunningsville and Lower Coverdale schools into the new school.
"We've met with the parents of both of those schools, and they're supportive of getting a new school built, so from a community perspective, we have lots of support that way," he says.
Having it teach students through to Grade 8 would also alleviate pressures on Riverview Middle School.
Riverview's continued growth could one day put pressure on the town's high school as well.
Kirkpatrick admits that some grades in each of Riverview's elementary schools are filled to capacity, and Riverview High is currently making use of every one of it's available classrooms.
Department of Education representative Mansoreh Nasserchian said yesterday the government is aware of the requests from School District 2 and the priority in which the requests were made.
Nasserchian says no decisions will be announced until the government unveils its capital budget early next month.
Meanwhile, parents like Lana Hansen play the waiting game.
"I'm not concerned that my kids are going to get hurt the minute they walk in (Gunningsville School's) door," Hansen says. "I'm more concerned about what they may be missing out on, opportunities in the long run, if they don't have full gym facilities.
"Gunningsville does an awesome job of doing more with almost nothing. The environment is awesome, the teachers are awesome. We've had nothing but a great experience, but at the same time, there's no hiding the fact that the 'cafetorium' as they call it, the gym-slash-cafeteria . . . it doesn't even look like a gym. You can't have a basketball game in there . . . there's no real infrastructure for real sports or learning, and it's just something I want my kids to have access to."
Gunningsville principal Adam Rogerson would not comment on the school's current situation or its upcoming Christmas concert being moved to another school.
Prev
Linear Mode
