В Китченере открылась первая за два десятилетия новая английская католическая старшая школа

Waterloo Region’s first new English high school in two decades opens Tuesday at a cost of $91 million. Notre Dame Catholic Secondary School is opening up to three years later than initially anticipated, and at twice the cost of an earlier estimate. The school occupies about 16 acres beside Fairway Road North in east Kitchener. It’s next to where Fairway Road crosses over the Grand River.  ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW A playing field and six-lane running track behind the school won’t be finished until later this fall. When the field opens with artificial turf, it will have a winter dome put over it to enable year-round use by students and the community. That’s at no cost to the board. “We’re in a private partnership with a vendor that is going to use the dome after hours,” Adrian Frigula, senior manager of facilities for the Waterloo Catholic District School Board. Students will have exclusive use of the domed field during school hours. Classrooms are ready, but three specialized rooms will take more time to complete.    Notre Dame is the first English high school to open locally since Huron Heights Secondary School opened in Kitchener in 2006. It will eventually have 1,400 students in grades 7 to 12 — a new mix of grades for the Catholic board. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW The school will open with a smaller population of students in grades 7 to 10. Grades 11 and 12 will be added later. School teams will be known as the Riverhawks.  Construction of the long-planned high school was estimated at $32 million in 2017. The provincial government approved construction in 2020. Shortly after, the board estimated the school could open as early as 2023. Ontario has now revealed the actual cost to build it at $78 million, paid by the provincial government. To this amount is added $13 million spent by the school board to buy the property, according to property records. “We’re making sure students have modern, high-quality learning environments, and I’m excited to see this new school welcome students,” Kitchener South—Hespeler MPP Jess Dixon said in a statement. Why did the cost of the new high school escalate?  Estimated construction costs doubled after the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, Frigula said. Faced with this escalation, the board and province didn’t sign off on the final design and higher costs until 2024. This meant the board could not meet its initial timeline to open the school by 2023. Also, the board did not buy the property until 2022. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW After construction began in 2024, the school was completed within two years, on time and at the expected cost when construction began, Frigula said.  Notre Dame uses the same design as two other Ontario schools previously built. “This is the third rendition of it, so that helps keep costs down,” he said. Catholic education director Annalisa Varano called the opening a proud moment. “This unique, state-of-the-art build was intentionally designed to serve our rapidly growing community,” she said in a statement. Planners have long sought a new Catholic high school to support new Kitchener suburbs, and to take enrolment pressure off St. Mary’s High School, which is eight kilometres away on Block Line Road in south Kitchener. This region now has 24 publicly funded high schools, 22 operating in English among Catholic and public boards, and two operating in French among Catholic and public boards.    In 2020, the French-language Viamonde school board opened École secondaire David-Saint-Jacques, a small Kitchener high school with about 100 students.