Overcrowded Moncton schools may get shake up in new report

Students at nine Moncton schools could see a dramatic shake-up to where they go to class as the Anglophone East School District looks at ways to cope with overcrowding in the area.

• Overcrowded Moncton schools top education council priorities

• Moncton school hires staff to walk students from portables

A new report, which will be released by Ernst & Young at a meeting on Wednesday night, will suggest adjusting the boundaries for school catchment areas and changing the grades that are assigned to different schools. These moves are intended to better distribute students in the district.

Tamara Nichol, the chair of the Anglophone East District Education Council, said the school review, which was issued in May 2015, said the report will address some of the major problems facing several Moncton schools.

"Overcrowding was the main driver of it [the study]," she said.

"It looks at what's happening at the other schools, are there space at other schools? Are we utilizing those spaces?" 

The schools covered in the report include Northrop Frye, Evergreen Park, Magnetic Hill, Birchmount, Beaverbrook, Queen Elizabeth, Edith Cavell, Hillcrest and Bessborough.

Nichol said she hopes the report, which will be released at Bernice MacNaughton High School on Wednesday night at 7 p.m., will take the concern away from school buildings and focus on the needs of the students. 

"Something that has become a distraction in education … are the buildings. We need to do what is best for students," she said.

One of the schools reviewed in the report is Northrop Frye where the Anglophone East School District has been forced to hire extra staff to walk students from their portable classrooms.

Northrop Frye has 672 students in kindergarten to Grade 8 making it the second largest K-to-8 school in the district.

The nine Moncton schools reviewed in the report are all located within a small radius.

Magnetic Hill School, which is outside of the city, is roughly 16 kilometres away from Bessborough School, which is located off Main Street near Jones Lake.

Nichol said she would like to see changes made to the existing schools as a cheaper option to spending millions of dollars on building a new school in one of Moncton's growing neighbourhoods.

For example, École Les Éclaireurs, a new school that opened in September in Fredericton, cost nearly $20 million to build. 

"Nobody can deny the population in the north end has been growing in the last number of years, growing and will continue to, at the same time those buildings are definitely needed," she said.

"People are anxious about this," she said.

"We want to have a decision made as soon as possible."

Anglophone School District East has 37 schools with 15,496 students.