UPDATED: Expansion in ‘design’ phase

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This article was published 30/06/2023 (1008 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A “major classroom addition” to Maryland Park School is one of several school capital projects the Manitoba government will fund for the 2023-24 academic year.

The province made this announcement in a Wednesday news release, revealing that it will spend $260 million throughout this period to bankroll renovations and additions ($90 million), new schools ($104 million) and existing infrastructure renewal ($66 million).

Information received on Friday morning from the Manitoba government indicates that the new build at Maryland Park School will include a 14-classroom addition.

Brandon School Division Supt. Mathew Gustafson told the Sun that this addition to Maryland Park is very welcome, since the school has experienced student overflow since the K-8 institution opened its doors in January 2021.

“It was built as a 450 [student] capacity school with the ability to expand,” Gustafson said on Thursday.

“The day it opened we were over capacity and enrolment has continued to climb, and we’re over 600 students now. So to address that we’ve been utilizing different classroom spaces, like band rooms and multi-purpose rooms.”

BSD has also attempted to fix this problem by installing four modular classrooms at Maryland Park as of this year, although board of trustees chair Linda Ross previously told the Sun this isn’t an ideal solution.

“It is a necessary evil,” Ross said in February. “There aren’t washrooms in the modulars. That means kids have to go outside to go into the main part of the building. If you go inside [the modulars], they’re actually lovely spaces, but they’re not attached to the school, and that’s a serious drawback.”

On Thursday, Gustafson couldn’t share any details about what this “major classroom addition” to Maryland Park will look like, since this project is still in its “design” phase, according to Wednesday’s release from the province.

But the superintendent is relieved that this project is moving forward, since accommodating a growing student population is a division-wide issue.

“We’ve had about a 30 per cent increase in the last 15 years in terms of student enrolment, so we acknowledge that many of our schools are facing these pressures,” Gustafson said.

“Maryland Park is the first school built in Brandon since Waverly … so this [addition] helps address the growing enrolment in the division and the growing city. It’s welcome in that way.”

The province’s list of capital projects for 2023-24 also includes a couple brand-new schools for the Westman region, including a Grade 9-12 vocational high school in Neepawa, a K-8 BSD school in Brandon and a K-12 division scolaire franco-manitobaine school in Brandon.

The status of all three of these projects are listed as “not started.”

The province is aiming to complete nine new schools across Manitoba by 2027.

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