Ground has officially been broken on a new Catholic school in the O’Brien Lake West neighbourhood. Plans for the 85,000 square foot school were first announced back in March 2018 but Board Chair Michael Ouellette says it has been in the works for longer than that.
“When you actually do all the work and administration keeps following through; when you actually get to turn the sod that means that seven or eight years ago what we were thinking has have come to fruition.”
The school has a capacity of 900 students from kindergarten to grade nine and will be used for french immersion. Ouellette said previously that this school is being built due to growing enrollment numbers adding in the last five years alone, they have seen 25 per cent growth.
The way numbers are looking currently, Grande Prairie and District Catholic Schools Superintendent Karl Germann says all 900 seats will be filled by the time construction is done.
“It’s going to to be the new home of Ecole St. Gerard so even now there’s over 100 kids coming into kindergarten every year so on opening the school, we’ll be full.”
A budget for the school has not been announced yet. Officials are hoping to have doors open by 2021.