The third of new schools and expansion projects that will be completed by the start of the school year were initially expected to be completed last year or even in 2022. Here are some buildings that are preparing to welcome their first students after a series of delays.
The expansion of Chambly secondary school
Announced in 2019, the expansion of this school, in order to add 27 new classrooms, was initially scheduled to be completed in September 2022 in this sector experiencing rapid population growth. The project, which will allow the establishment to accommodate 1,365 additional students, was then postponed to the end of August 2023. The expansion work was finally completed at the end of last year, while the delivery and installation of furniture in this infrastructure took place in recent months.
It is now planned that students from the Centre de services scolaire (CSS) des Patriotes will move into the expansion this month, as part of the start of the school year. The project bill has increased from $158.4 million to $177.3 million. This amount excludes the work that must now be carried out in the rest of the secondary school, classified as “D” due to its asset maintenance deficit estimated at nearly $3.5 million in 2022.
Two schools in Chisasibi, in Northern Quebec
A new elementary school was scheduled to open in September 2022 in Chisasibi, a Cree reserve land east of James Bay, before the project ran into delays. The facility is now on the list of 25 new buildings to be commissioned “for the 2024 school year” provided to Duty by the Ministry of Education. The authorized bill for the project has swelled by $13.3 million in recent years, to reach $69.3 million.
A new high school was also scheduled to open in January 2023 in this remote community of nearly 5,000 residents. There too, however, construction has fallen behind schedule, to the point where the school’s commissioning was pushed back first to August 2023, then to this month. In the meantime, a $13.1 million increase in the cost of the project has been authorized. It now stands at $153.3 million.
Croisée High School, in Laval
Initially scheduled for September 2022, the inauguration of this new 73-classroom school, located on Boulevard du Souvenir in Laval, was initially postponed until the start of the 2023 school year. However, broken electrical conduits, as well as a shortage of labor and difficulties in supplying materials, have once again delayed this project, reported last year the Laval Mail.
The CSS of Laval assures, however, that this time, it is for real: the Croisée secondary school will indeed open its doors “at the start of the school year,” the organization indicates in an email to Duty. As for the estimated bill for the project, it has decreased by 3.7 million since the amount initially authorized in 2019. It now stands at 229.5 million.