District to review plan to replace aging school

The Central Okanagan school district is up against the wall when it comes to replacing the aging Rutland Middle School, says the district’s secretary-treasurer.

Eileen Sadlowski will present an update on the history of the district’s attempts to replace Rutland Middle School to the planning and facilities committee this week.

“We have three new trustees, and we have a new PAC and new people who are asking the questions again, so we thought it would be worthwhile,” she said. “We as a board need to talk about what our plan is with this school and how do we want to proceed with it, because we’re restricted by how much the ministry is willing to put into replacement projects.”

The original project identification report was submitted in 2009 for the replacement of Rutland Middle on a new site.

However, any land large enough in the Rutland area is within the Agricultural Land Reserve.

In 2015, the report was updated to recommend Quigley Elementary be repurposed as a middle school.

The projected cost of repurposing Quigley Elementary was $35.9 million. The cost of building a new school on the Quigley site was identified as $37.9 million.

The total cost of maintaining Rutland Middle over the last three years was $653,879.

The longer it is left, the more expensive it becomes, said Sadlowski.

While the board approved moving forward with repurposing Quigley, the Ministry of Education has indicated it is not on board with that plan.

“The ministry was having trouble supporting a solution that takes any of our elementary schools out of inventory, because we’re a growing district,” said Sadlowski. “That’s fair enough, but we are really struggling with the challenge of not being able to find land in the Rutland area.”

Another option is to build on the site of an existing elementary school and share the site.

“That represents ongoing challenges for field space in particular,” said Sadlowski. “You start to feel like your back is up against the wall.”

For now, the district will continue to place Rutland Middle as the No. 1 priority for replacement projects within the capital plan, she said.