WEYBURN - The Holy Family school division received approval for a grant of $725,000, for a portable classroom at St. Michael School in Weyburn, the board heard at their January meeting on Wednesday evening.
Chad Fingler, superintendent of school operations, noted that their facilities manager, Mike Kaip, has initiated work with a consulting firm, 1080 Consulting, to “get ahead of the game” and start the process rolling for the relocatable classroom.
The consultants will post a request for proposals (RFP), as Holy Family is one of about 35 approved relocatable classrooms and they want to get a good selection of contractors to choose the best one for this project.
Fingler felt with the size of this grant, larger than what they had received before, would cover the consulting fees and the cost to move the classroom in over the summer.
“There might be additional costs, which we won’t know until further down the road,” he added.
Trustee Jerome Sidloski asked if the province would consider having the classroom “stick-built” instead of being portable.
“Yes, but it should still be built in a fashion that it can be relocated if needed,” said Fingler, adding it will most likely be a prefab relocatable classroom.
The tenders for it should be back and awarded by mid to late February, so it can be built and ready by early July or earlier.
Board chair Bruno Tuchscherer noted that previously the board had to pay extra to have a portable classroom moved here, but Fingler felt it will likely be covered under this grant this year.
He noted the earlier grant was lower, around the $450-500,000 range, and a grant last year was around $600,000, where this one is $725,000.
Education director Ken Sampson noted of the 35 classrooms approved this year, 15 of them are for Regina Catholic school board alone, and six or seven are going into Saskatoon.
“We are in the starting gate position, hopefully ahead of the crunch, so we’re in a strategic position to do this,” said Fingler.
