Overcrowded Moncton schools may get shake up in new report

Students at nineMonctonschoolscould see a dramatic shake-up to where they go to class as the Anglophone East School District looks at ways to cope with overcrowding in the area.

• OvercrowdedMonctonschools top education council priorities

• Monctonschool hires staff to walk students from portables

A new report, which will be releasedbyErnst& Young at a meeting on Wednesday night, will suggest adjusting the boundaries for school catchment areasand changing the grades that are assigned to different schools. These moves are intended to betterdistribute students in the district.

TamaraNichol,thechair of the Anglophone East District Education Council,said the school review, which was issued in May 2015, said the report will address some of the major problems facing severalMonctonschools.

"Overcrowding was the main driver of it [the study]," she said.

"It looks at what's happening at the other schools, are there space at other schools? Are we utilizing those spaces?"

The schools covered in the reportincludeNorthropFrye, Evergreen Park, Magnetic Hill,Birchmount,Beaverbrook, Queen Elizabeth, EdithCavell,HillcrestandBessborough.

Nicholsaid shehopes the report, which will be released atBerniceMacNaughtonHigh School on Wednesday night at 7 p.m.,will take the concern away fromschool buildings and focus on the needs of the students.

"Something that has become a distraction in education are the buildings. We need to do what is best for students," she said.

One of the schools reviewed in the report is NorthropFryewhere the AnglophoneEast School District hasbeen forced to hire extra staffto walk students from their portable classrooms.

NorthropFryehas 672 students in kindergarten to Grade 8 making it the secondlargestK-to-8schoolin the district.

The nine Moncton schools reviewed in the report are all located within a small radius.

Magnetic Hill School, which is outside of the city, is roughly 16 kilometres away fromBessboroughSchool, which is located off Main Street near Jones Lake.

Nicholsaid shewould like to see changes made tothe existingschools as a cheaper option to spending millions of dollars onbuilding a new school in one of Moncton'sgrowing neighbourhoods.

For example,coleLesclaireurs, a new school that opened in September in Fredericton,cost nearly $20 million to build.

"Nobody can deny the population in the north end has been growing in the last number of years,growing and will continue to, at the same time those buildings are definitely needed," she said.

"People are anxious about this," she said.

"We want to have a decision made as soon as possible."

Anglophone School District East has 37 schools with 15,496 students.