The plan to turn Quinte Secondary School into a K-8 French Immersion school is still in the works.
Hastings Prince Edward District School Board Director of Education Sean Monteith told the board during their public meeting on Monday night an ad hoc committee will need to be established.
Monteith told the board this plan to reopen Quinte Secondary has generated lots of positive community interest.
Currently, Quinte Health Care is using the property as a COVID-19 testing site and that lease has been extended to the end of June 2021.
The testing centre is using approximately 32,000 square feet but could be reducing that footprint down to 20,000 as they work to figure out winter testing functionality.
Monteith says the extension of the lease has not delayed their discussions or planning to move the work required at QSS forward and they are in a good position to establish the ad hoc committee.
“The fact that QSS continues to be utilized for the remainder of this school year, also provides us with some time to plan thoughtfully, and establish a scope and sequence framework for the committee for the recommendation being made back to the full board by the end of the 2020-2021 school year.”
Superintendent of Business Services Nick Pfeiffer says discussing construction plans right now is a bit premature as they haven’t fully determined what the plan and the layouts will be.
A future update on the plans for QSS will be brought forward at the January board meeting.
At a special public board meeting in June of this year, the Hastings Prince Edward District School Board of Trustees voted unanimously to reopen the 121,000 square foot facility as a Kindergarten to Grade 8 French Immersion school, for the 2022/23 school year.
