The push is on to ensure a new school expected for Saint John's central peninsula can accommodate a lengthy list of community programs.
The Anglophone South District Education Council is expected to recommend a new school in January, and the province is expected to approve the project in time for next year's election.
A new school on the peninsula has long been key to plans by municipal officials to attract new people to the city's core.
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There has been intensive lobbying by local politicians, city planners and a community of business and non-profit groups who now work with the area's two current schools, St. John the Baptist-King Edward and Prince Charles.
Those two schools are both older and considered under-enrolled.
St. John the Baptist School, with about 240 students, is also home to an ambitious early learning centre run by the YMCA.
Learning problems detected
It takes up an entire wing of the school's ground floor. Thirty-three children, one to four-years-old, attend daycare there, with special programs to assess and address individual learning problems before the child moves to kindergarten upstairs.
The program also allows children to spend time with their future kindergarten teachers before leaving the daycare.
"So the children feel comfortable when they go into kindergarten," said Adrienne Boudreau, vice-president of child care for the Y.
"For a lot of the parents that are in this community, school might not have been a good experience."
Another 15 children are enrolled in an after-school program.
Community role stressed
"It's vital for those things to be addressed prior to kindergarten," said parent school committee chair Theresa Rogers.
"We believe a school in this neighbourhood, or anywhere in the central peninsula, essentially needs to be a community hub."
Hot lunches are available to every kid in the school for $15 a month, free for those families that cannot pay. There's also a free breakfast program.
Programs are made possible through an extended community of volunteers, non-profit groups and businesses ranging from Irving Oil to the Royal Hair Studio.
An overwhelming majority of parents do not own a car, so a new school would have to be within walking distance, another special consideration since it is anticipated the facility would require about six acres (almost 2½ hectares) to allow for a playing field, recreation space and parking.
Coun. Donna Reardon, whose ward includes Saint John's central peninsula, says city planners will work closely with the school district on a new school. (CBC)
Rob Fowler, chair of the Anglophone South District Education Council, said the early learning centre is unique to the school and tops the wish list of features for a new building.
"The timing for us this year is especially good with an election coming up," Fowler said. "We're hoping we get an early approval as part of the election process, if not before."
The early learning centre's "a bit bigger than what the current specs call for, in terms of what we would require," he said. "So there's going to have to be some special consideration given to that."
There's been a concerted effort by city politicians and municipal planners both to ensure the school is placed in the central peninsula and to ensure the early learning centre is part of it.
It fits with the city's new municipal plan aimed at limiting sprawl, reducing vehicle traffic and directing growth to primary development areas.
The two Ward 3 councillors, Donna Reardon and Gerry Lowe, and Mayor Don Darling have been part of the process from the beginning, along with Ward 2's John MacKenzie, who spent years on the district education council.
Reardon said the city is pushing hard to ensure the school complements both the municipal plan and the central peninsula neighbourhood plan now being drafted.
A key to neighbourhood success
"One of the components of a successful neighbourhood — along with all kinds of other things — is a school," said Reardon, who sent her now-adult children to St. John the Baptist-King Edward.
"We need to be dialoguing with the province because a strong city is good for them. When you have people in a community where you have density, it's better for the province, it's better for us."
Fowler says it would take four to five years to acquire land and build the school.
A new school designed to accommodate a similar number of students recently opened in west Saint John at a cost of $21.6 million.
