Saving parts of Moncton High studied

The New Brunswick government is studying whether it is possible to save Moncton High School's tower and auditorium.

The 75-year-old school has been closed to students since October after health and safety concerns were exposed.

The closure forced roughly 1,300 students to spread out to a series of other city schools for the remainder of the school year.

Maureen O'Shaunessy of CS&P Architects told a public meeting in November that Moncton High should keep its auditorium, tower and Church Street façade.

Last fall, an architectural consultant's report commissioned by the school district recommended parts of the aging school be preserved but said the rest of the building should be rebuilt.

The provincial government is examining the tower and auditorium to see if they are structurally sound.

Bob Martin, an assistant deputy minister in the Department of Supply and Services, said workers are removing some of the large stones to examine their condition.

"We're poking and prodding to make sure and at the same time we're looking at what we have to do to renovate and reuse that portion of Moncton High School," Martin said.

Martin said workers are assessing the structural components of the tower, the auditorium and what used to be the gym.

The government official said tests on the current gym show no concerns.

Martin said the work on the school is almost done.

"We started towards the end of November and we're sort of just wrapping up now and we hope to have a draft report and some preliminary information this week," he said.

Martin said his department will then meet with officials from the Department of Education to look at options and decide how to proceed.

Education Minister Jody Carr announced in December that $10 million had set aside to begin working on a new school to replace Moncton High.

The education minister said he wanted to adhere to the consultant's recommendations, which would save the tower and auditorium, but Carr said he wanted to wait for structural assessments to come back.

Proposed contingency plans

A working group, which was created to look at options of where Moncton High's students can go to school next September, released three potential options on Thursday.

One would have an internal split shift for students divided between the Grade 9 and 10 students and the Grade 11 and 12 students.

Each group of students would attend classes either two or three days a week on a rotational basis, taking four courses each semester. An additional course would be taken either online or independently.

This option may see the students remain at Edith Cavell School and have Edith Cavell students remain at Queen Elizabeth School. Or the department could find some commercial space available elsewhere in Moncton.

The second option would have Grade 9 and 10 students stay at Northrop Frye School and the Grade 11 and 12 students attend Edith Cavell.

That plan would mean the regular Edith Cavell students would stay at Queen Elizabeth School, and portable classrooms would be needed at Evergreen Park School, Magnetic Hill School, and Queen Elizabeth.

The third option proposed by the working group would have Sunny Brae students move to Lewisville Middle School.

Moncton High's Grade 9 students would then switch to Sunny Brae, and Moncton High's Grade 10, 11 and 12 students would show up for classes at Edith Cavell with the use of portables.

This option would mean Edith Cavell students would stay at Queen Elizabeth with the addition of a portable classroom.

The working group is asking the public for its input on these recommendations.

Several commercial spaces were examined by the group as potential solutions.

However, in a statement, it said those proposals were not recommended because either there was not enough room or it would be too expensive to turn the buildings into classrooms.

The group is still considering the possibility of putting classes on the former Atlantic Baptist University campus.

In that situation, the group is looking at setting up a temporary prefabricated school that could make room for of Moncton High's students.