School board trustees approved nearly $1.1 million in spending on Tuesday night to purchase and install two modular buildings to house full-day kindergarten classes at Malaspina and Glenview elementary schools.
The buildings should be ready to host their first classes shortly after the Thanksgiving Day long weekend, secretary-treasurer Brian Mix said.
They will stand separate from the schools themselves on foundations that are now in place, said Mix, who stressed they should not be confused with portables.
"They're manufactured off-site, they come in two halves, they're joined in the middle but they're on a permanent foundation," Mix said. "They're not meant to be moved from site to site and we had to do significant site preparation at both Malaspina and Glenview to get the sites building-ready."
After partial introduction last year, school districts have been mandated by the provincial government to fully implement full-day kindergarten this year, saying it better prepares the pupils for school.
Expanding the schools themselves to make room for the classes would be cost-prohibitive, according to Mix. An expansion requires the addition of at least four classrooms and includes the cost of extending hallways and utilities and typically runs about $2.5 million, he said.
The modulars are larger than typical classrooms and include washrooms and other amenities.
"The detail is in the site servicing, that's where the cost is," Mix said.
Malaspina, located in the College Heights area, and Glenview, located in the Hart area, are two of the few schools seeing a growth in their populations.
