Leo Hayes High School considers overcrowding options

A meeting on Thursday, May 19, could decide the future of Fredericton's Leo Hayes High School, a school that was built just 17 years ago but has been over-capacity for a number of years.

The principal of the school, Brad Sturgeon, told Information Morning Fredericton a recent report by Ernst and Young recommended a number of options, including sending some of its overflow students to other schools in outlying communities or an expansion of the existing building.

The District Education Council has been gathering public input on changing the catchment area, which it sees as the most fiscally prudent option, as opposed to a $9 million expansion.

Information Morning - Fredericton11:20LHHS Over Crowding - Brad Sturgeon

We talk to the principal at Leo Hayes High School about over crowding in the school.

A committee of the Anglophone West District Education Council for the area asked for public input on the idea and will make a recommendation at Thursday's meeting at the Fredericton Education Centre at 6:30 p.m.

Sturgeon said when the high school was designed in the 1990s, it was based on the needs of the time, though "possibly not looking far enough down the road at the expansion on the northside, the growth around the Neill farm area, that sort of thing."

The school was school designed for a student population of between 1,390 to 1,500. Sturgeon said currently there are more than 1,700 students, "and we've had over 1,700 students in the school as long as I've been there over the past seven years." 

'Cart teacher' 

Sturgeon said the overcrowding has an impact on both education and school life. He said there are eight portable classrooms as there aren't enough rooms to go around.

The term 'cart teacher' was coined to refer to teachers who don't have an assigned classroom, but must take their belongings from place to place, sharing space with teachers who have free periods. 

Dedicated science labs have been taken over for regular classroom teaching. In addition, Sturgeon said some students have to travel to Fredericton High School for vocational classes, such as metal fabrication, carpentry and mechanics.

"We're not able to offer  those courses ... because in the original design the design was more around the computer technology aspect of things," he said.

Students bused to other areas

The school is a public-private partnership, with Scotia Learning owning the actual building and Sturgeon said any expansion would cost the government money. However, he said redrawing school boundaries to send some students to Stanley, Nackawic, Fredericton and Oromocto high schools also comes with potential problems, as people might object to having their children sent elsewhere.

"They want to be a Lion ... we're a large high school and there's a lot of variety in things that we offer and things that we do,"  things that are not available in smaller schools, such as more course offerings.

Sturgeon said the boundary change likely wouldn't have an impact on anyone within the city of Fredericton.

"It would be more of the students who feed into our schools from outer lying areas."

In response to those who say part of the problem stems from allowing in too many out-of-zone students, Sturgeon said that's not a big issue at Leo Hayes. For his part, Sturgeon would like have the best of both worlds in answer to the problem.

"I would love to see the school somehow be able to acquire a technology wing so that we could offer those vocational classes to students at Leo Hayes High School and the boundary redistribution which would lower our numbers."