A $191.3 million has been allocated in the Provincial Budget for school capital plans including the construction of a new school in Carlyle to consolidate the existing elementary and high schools.
Andy Dobson is the Manager of Facilities and Transportation for Southeast Cornerstone Public School Division. He explains the project has been in the works since 2014, when they realized a new facility would be warranted and began applying for capital fund grants.
“We were awarded the project, which is a two-story pre-k to 12 school, very similar to the Legacy Park School in Weyburn. It has a child care component of 51 seats and 21st century pedagogy, that's kind of the natural light in the classrooms, open spaces. Some of the pieces is we have Home Ec, Applied Practical Arts, which includes electrical construction, welding, plasma cutting, and things like that, so lots of opportunities from their current school.”
The project is currently in design development by the same company that designed LPES, Dobson says they’ve met with the community and stakeholders for their input as well.
“We’re just finishing up the design and hope to move into the tendering process in a couple months here with doing an RFP for the general contractor, so that's when you'll see shovels in the ground and stuff once we have the general contractor in place.”
They’re tracking an expected opening date of January 2027. He explains these projects typically take a year in design and two years in construction.
Dobson believes it was the condition of the Carlyle Elementary School that got them on the list for funding, however it often takes the consolidation of schools to get a capital project.
“So that's what we did, like I said, right from 2014, and 10 years later and you get a school.”
Dobson expresses his relief the project experienced no delays with certain economic impacts making new construction challenging.
“We were concerned with the inflation and with the tariffs and stuff. But we were ahead of that and weren't paused. So we can continue to work on the final design and get all of our engineers and contractors in place and start construction.”
For now, both facilities remain operational until the new school opens its doors.