Elbow Park School to be torn down and rebuilt, CBE votes

The Calgary Board of Education voted Tuesday night to build a new Elbow Park School.

The board voted six to one in favour of completely rebuilding the elementary school rather than renovating the existing building, which was destroyed in the June floods.

• Flood-damaged Elbow Park school could take 2 years to fix

The board did not say publicly the actual cost of either option, but said renovating the schoolwould cost at least 55 per cent more than starting from scratch.

The building is 88 years old and there was concern because of the damage, and that it was built on a shallow foundation, it could collapse.

Board chairSheila Taylor, whoseconstituency includes the school, said the more responsible choice is to rebuild.

Ive been hearing from folks since the flood happened about this school, about their concerns, said Taylor.

That devastation [of the flood] and that impact continue especially for residents in communities that were directly impacted and so, although time goes by, I dont think that we can forget about those communities and forget about the commitments that were made to those communities.

Commitmentsmade

Taylor said its never easy to make a heavydecision like this one.

Promises were made directly by the premier of this province, by the minister of education and people made decisions in their lives based on those promises.

Amber Stewart, who is the trustee for wards 12 and 14 in southeast Calgary, was the one dissenter on the board.

She said it was the most difficult decision shes made as a new trustee.

It came with a very heavy heart and great weight, and at the end of the day I felt that I put forth my debate and voted with my conscious.

Stewart said her concern is whether the spending the money on a new building was the right thing to do for the school board as a whole

For me the No. 1 factor was the ambiguity around the financial details.

She said the fact that its a beautiful, historical building made it an even more difficult decision.

The new building will be built at the same location.