New school won’t be ready for September

LAKEFIELD - The new Lakefield District Public School won’t be ready to open when the new school year starts in September and the completion has been pushed back until December, the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board has announced.

Instead all Lakefield area public elementary school students will attend the existing Ridpath Junior Public School across town on Ermatinger Street until the new school is ready, according to superintendent of education Jack Nigro.

“We can’t express to you enough our anger and disappointment in this news,” Nigro stated in a letter to parents and students. “We feel betrayed and misled, and we understand that you, the members of our school communities, will also feel the same way.”

LDPS will be a junior kindergarten to Grade 8 school located in the former Lakefield District Secondary School, which closed as a high school a year ago due to low enrolment. It will replace Ridpath and Lakefield Intermediate, the Grade 7 and 8 wing at LDSS which is being demolished.

Construction began in April but contractor Steelcore Construction Ltd. has now determined the timeline is too tight to complete the project by September and has set December as the completion date, citing complications with the plumbing work.

When the $7,418,450 contract for the project was awarded to Steelcore in the spring, the board set a contingency plan in place to place five portables at the Ridpath Junior site in case the project couldn’t be completed by September.

The new school will also have a 49-space child-care facility operated by the YMCA of Central East Ontario and a child and family hub for young children operated by the Peterborough Family Resource Centre.

NOTE: Read the full text of Jack Nigro’s letter and follow a link to the design for the new school online at www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com.

We can’t express to you enough our anger and disappointment in this news. We feel betrayed and misled, and we understand that you, the members of our school communities, will also feel the same way.”

Jack Nigro