CAPE School move could be by summer
If all goes according to plan, CAPE Public Charter School will be moving from its current facility in the Flats over to the former north wing of Medicine Hat High School by the summer of 2018, says CAPE superintendent Teresa Di Ninno.
“This is two projects in one,” explains Di Ninno. “It is referred to as the Medicine Hat High modernization project. There are two pockets of money here: One going to the modernization of Hat High itself, and then there is the pocket of money for the modernization of our part of that project.
“The final project expense budget has been approved. The next step is for the owner of the building, which is SD76, to sign the contract to get the work started. This should be happening really soon.”
Di Ninno says renovations on the Hat High north wing were originally slated to start this past summer thanks to an agreement reached between the provincial government and SD76, where additional monies were allocated to the Hat High modernization project on the condition SD76 accommodate the growth needs of CAPE School. However, construction is behind schedule, confirms Di Ninno.
“Whether the actual moving date of summer of 2018 is still feasible is anybody’s guess,” she says. “It depends on how fast the work can get done.”
Eventual ownership of the fully-renovated CAPE School site is still under discussion; until then all grant money for the build will be channelled through SD76, says Di Ninno.
“It’s all under the management, supervision and reporting of SD76,” she confirms. “They are the bankers here.”
Di Ninno says her board members and parent council are excited by the move, and are eagerly preparing for it.
“It will provide us with 17 functional classrooms of a decent size, which is what we need at full capacity,” explains Di Ninno. “It provides us with a larger site-administration space with some breakout rooms for students as well, which we desperately need.
“It is going to provide us with a student services suite, and it has an office for our director of student services, which is our full-time psychologist. There is space there for one of our EAs, who works with our literacy program. The larger gym, of course, is our godsend, because we are struggling to find space to offer our daily phys-ed, and all of the other components that go with it.”
Di Ninno says she has heard no word on what will happen to the current CAPE School site in the Flats, which was formerly the Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education’s St. Louis School, (built in 1913). MHCBE still owns the building, but did not return a News request for comment by press time on Friday.