New French elementary school will be built near high school in VaudreuilDorion.
Tired of waiting for city to come up with a spot, board decides to go it alone, on land it owns
The Commission scolaire des Trois Lacs said it will build a new school in Vaudreuil-Dorion on land it already owns — to be open for the beginning of the 2014-15 school year.
The decision comes after the board was growing tired of waiting for the city to come up with an appropriate plot of land for a school, which has been in the planning stages for two years.
“The board decided not to wait any longer and to build on land that it owns,” said Colette Frappier, a spokeswoman for the board.
The school will be built on Paul Gérin-Lajoie St., in the spot now occupied by the baseball field of École secondaire de la Cité des Jeunes.
It will cost $10.5 million, and the ministry of education will fund 90 per cent of the cost.
The board will have to come up with the rest through cost-saving and energy-efficiency measures.
Frappier said the board will use a pre-fab design to save on the costs of an architect.
She said it will take about a year to build the school, and the groundbreaking should take place in the fall.
The new school will have three classes at each grade level, kindergarten through Grade 6. Like other new buildings, the new school’s name will be chosen through a contest for area residents.
The high school will begin work this spring on a new synthetic soccer and football field, and Frappier said she’s not sure if the school will relocate its baseball diamond.
“It could be moved to another part of the campus,” she said. “There is a lot of land there.”
The go-ahead is a big relief to the French board, which has been struggling to keep up with demand in the fast-growing region.
The board already opened two new schools in Vaudreuil-Dorion and St-Zotique last year, and it needs to build a new school in StLazare because l’Orée-du-Bois elementary there is overloaded and has portable classrooms.
Frappier added there are already 100 children from St-Lazare who are bused to Vaudreuil-Dor-
ion or to Hudson.