By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

Two years ago the Tri-County Regional School Board submitted a proposal for a new high school, the relocation of a junior high school and the construction of a new elementary school to replace two existing ones.

Last week Education Minister Karen Casey announced a new high school will be built, but that’s where the announcement ended.

However that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the issue.

Following the minister’s April 8 announcement, Tri-County Regional School Board chair Faye Haley said a new high school is one step in a long-range plan.

She added even after a new high school is constructed, it doesn’t necessarily mean learning will stop in the Parade Street building where the high school is housed now.

“We will have to look at the future of this school and this building and we will be doing everything we can to ensure it will continue to serve the young people in the Yarmouth area for many more years to come,” Haley said. “There’s a lot of life in this old girl yet.”

The capital construction project proposal the school board submitted to the education department two years ago involved building a new high school, moving Yarmouth Junior High into a retrofitted YCMHS building and constructing a new elementary school to combine Central and South Centennial Schools.

Casey notes the board has started work on a master plan that looks at the needs of the junior high and elementary students and how they can be best served.

“But if this school (referring to the existing YCMHS building) is going to be used for any other grade configuration, the first thing you’d have to do is have a high school to move the high school kids into,” she said.

Superintendent Phil Landry also said the board will continue to examine the needs and uses of its other schools.