Four schools under the jurisdiction of the Waterloo Region District School Board are undergoing renovations this summer, and all four are expected to be ready for the first day of school.
Kitchener’s Mackenzie King Public School, Breslau Public School and two Cambridge facilities – Tait Street Public School and Manchester Public School – are getting facelifts as they prepare for their first year of full-day kindergarten.
School board officials tell CTV News all four schools will be ready to go when classes begin on Sept. 2.
That includes Tait Street, which is getting new classes, more office space and a bigger gymnasium.
Ian Gaudet, the board’s controller of facility services, says four years of expanding schools to make room for full-day kindergarten have provided valuable experience.
“We have most of the bugs worked out,” he says.
An additional benefit of the renovations, Gaudet says, is that it decreases the board’s reliance on portable classrooms – he estimates that 85 of the 340 portables used last year won’t be necessary in 2014-15.
In total, the board is spending $19 million on construction this summer at the four schools introducing full-day kindergarten and other sites.
