Yellowknife's J.H. Sissons school could be replaced in coming years

J.H. Sissons could be replacedafter not receiving a major renovation since it opened in 1975.

• Some J. H. Sissons parents concerned about losing their school

Last month, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment (ECE) presented Yellowknife Education District No.1 (YK1) with options that included renovating the existing structure or building a new school entirely. The department and the school board then decided to further investigate the idea of building a new school.

John Stephenson, the chairperson of YK1, said this decision came down to money.

"Cost is a significant aspect of things. So taking an old building and trying to make it new involves a lot of cost that starts to exceed the cost of removing the existing structure," he said.

The building plan is still in early stages and several more steps are required before it can be put into motion.

First, the government will put together a planning study, a final preliminary cost estimate and a schematic design by the end of March 2018. The study will then be reviewed by an internal government committee "to ensure that the scope of work is complete and that the design solution is appropriate," said Olin Lovely, an assistant deputy minister in the Department of Education, in an email.

"This committee will then recommend that it proceed into the overall Government of the Northwest Territories capital planning process where it will be assessed against other priority projects for funding or it will go back into the planning stage to deal with major unresolved issues," he said.

'Serious retrofitting'

Stephenson said the school board recognizes that there are a number of steps, but change has been a long time coming.

"It's long been recognized that it was due for some very serious retrofitting and improvement to modernize and to replace the functions in the building and it's been off and on the capital plan for many years, so it's time to move forward to build a new school there," he said.

Stephenson acknowledged that construction poses potential disruptions, specifically to the students. He said depending on the building plan, they could either build the school on a different part of the site and use the existing building during constructionor they could tear down the existing building and make plans to accommodate the students elsewhere.

Stephenson estimates there will be a few years of planning and budgeting before construction could start, and then another couple years of construction after that.

Despite this timeline, Stephenson said the school board is excited about the prospect of a new school.

"It's very exciting for us to be considering a new school in YK1 and in Yellowknife. New schools always bring tremendous excitement to programming, to staff and to students and the parents."