THUNDER BAY - This school year will look very different for students across the city, but for those attending École Elsie MacGill Public School, the new routines come with the excitement of being the first classes in a brand new building.
“Their eyes are lighting up. They love it,” said principal Heather Harris. “They are really excited. They are happy to see old faces, new faces, and their teachers and they love the building.”
The newly constructed Lakehead Public School Board facility opened on Tuesday and welcomed approximately 300 students in Grades 4 to 8 for the first day as part of a staggered start to the school year.
École Elsie MacGill Public School was built to replace the aging Agnew H. Johnson and Edgewater Park public schools.
Construction began on the $27 million project at the former site of Sir Winston Churchill Collegiate and Vocational Institute last year and was originally slated to be complete in April. However, due to the pandemic, construction was halted in March.
There is still some minor work left to be completed on the building, which was unable to move forward because of material shortages during the pandemic. Work such as adding paneling in the lobby area should be completed by October.
“The contractors and our own board people worked really hard to ensure we were ready for opening in our learning spaces so most of what you are seeing is cosmetics,” said A.J. Keene, superintendent of education with the Lakehead Public School Board.
“It’s been a long time coming. It’s a beautiful building. It’s very good to see the excitement on the kids faces today.”
And with the new school also comes a new learning curve, not only for students, but staff, as they navigate the new routines involving COVID-19 protocols.
“Like all the schools, we do have to learn some new routines for COVID, but we do have a lot of space,” Harris said. “We have wide hallways, wide stairwells, so that’s great for keeping kids at an appropriate distance. We have one long hallway on the first floor and one long hallway on the second floor, so there aren’t places to get lost and it’s easy for the kids to navigate.”
The total enrollment will be approximately 750 students from Agnew H. Johnson and Edgewater public schools and Harris said it will take some time for students and staff to adjust.
“We are starting from scratch,” she said. “We don’t have existing routines to build on, we’ve kind of all come together as a team and everyone has been working super hard to get ready for the kids.”
But Harris added she thinks once students and staff become comfortable with the new environment and the new routines, everything will run smoothly.
“We’ve been working hard. We are all hands on deck,” she said. “Today with the kids, we kind of realized we got this. We are going to be okay. It’s going to be great.”
“I think once kids get used to it and staff get used to it, it will just become what we do.”
The opening of the new school comes at a time with a lot of changes and new protocols to protect against COVID-19.
According to Keene, approximately 85 per cent of students in the Lakehead Board have opted for in-person learning. While some parents have decided to opt-in for classroom learning and others wanting to change to remote learning in recent days, Keene is advising parents to be patient.
“We’ve asked all parents to put that on hold for a week or so until where we see where things settle,” he said.
“Staffing is complex right now. We can’t add any more kids to remote learning without adding more teachers and we would have to find those teachers from schools. We are asking parents to be patient this week. Next week we will look hard at numbers and be able to make adjustments.”
But if things continue to go well in the community, Keene said he anticipates more parents will choose to return their child to the classroom in October during the first window to opt-in for in-person learning.
Harris added there was some anxiety from parents, especially with it being a new building. A grand opening could not be held due to COVID-19 restrictions, but there are plans to welcome in parents once restrictions are lifted.
“I hope when their kids go home tonight they tell them it’s amazing and will help ease some of those worries,” she said.
