The city's Montessori education program will reside at Gladstone elementary school for the next two years.
Montessori kids were moved to Gladstone - a closed school that had to be refurbished in a rush for temporary class occupancy - when their home at Highglen school was seriously damaged in a fire on April 22.
School District 57 superintendent Brian Pepper said the work is not yet complete to determine if the Highglen site can be salvaged with renovations or will need to be fully demolished. That is a decision still active between the Ministry of Education and the SD57 board. Based on prior history with building replacements, said Pepper, it was felt that at least two years would pass before any replacement would come to fruition so the board has committed to the Gladstone site for that time period.
"These things are always complicated, they always take time, but the experience I've had with that is, [negotiations between SD57 and Victoria on infrastructure needs] are always take a positive, forward-looking, solutions-based approach," Pepper said.
He also confirmed that the bussing program that ferried students from the Highglen site to the Gladstone site each morning would come to an end at the end of this school year. That was previously known to parents of Montessori kids, he said.
The interim bussing was done "to keep the Highglen student body intact" following the fire, but no choice program schools receive bus service because they all gather students from across the district according to the wishes of the families involved.
"I totally expected this," said Montessori parent Charlene Jorgensen. "I would expect that the school will be at Gladstone permanently. With empty school properties throughout Prince George, I don't see it making sense, monetarily speaking, for the district to rebuild. As much as I loved the location at Highglen, I just don't see it happening."
Pepper said there was a need to set out a short-term, medium-term and long-term plan. The short-term move was moving quickly into Gladstone following the fire. Medium-range plans are what Thursday's announcement was about. There are no plans solidified yet for the long-term.
More medium-term activities still in progress.
"We need to reestablish a library, we have to buy furniture, we are using borrowed materials but we need permanent materials, they have some specific learning materials required for Montessori programming," Pepper said. "There is a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done."
Helping those efforts are the school's parent advisory council and the Prince George Montessori Education Society. The two groups are jointly hosting a community barbecue and garage sale on Saturday at the Gladstone site from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
