At the Moncton High graduation the other night the looming loss of the physical building was weighing on the whole event – mentioned directly or indirectly by just about everyone that spoke. The valedictorian had along segment about the physical Moncton High.
But the new Moncton High is being built. The steel is up. There is no going back.
However, I am told that all of the English language Moncton area high schools are roughly at capacity right now. I suspect the demographic models the province uses for these things is forecasting a tapering off of the high school population in the coming decade but I am not so sure that will happen. The population aged 0-14 rose by nine percent in the Moncton CMA between 2001 and 2011 with the larger part of that gain in the 2006-2011 period. Much of the net population growth over the next decade will be coming from immigrants and they are by definition young. They will be bringing young families and boosting the high school population.
Now, if the Moncton population growth tapers off or stagnates – this will be a moot point but if it continues to grow….
We could need another high school in the Moncton area within 5 or 6 years or so.
Why not do the renovations to the current Moncton High after the current kids go into Irishtown High in the Fall of 2014 – and have a renovated downtown High school by Fall of 2017 or 2018. The demand could very well be there.
It would likely take a lot of reallocation of students but the reality is the kids in the Mapleton area and even further out will be closer to the Irishtown School than those in downtown Moncton.
Just a thought.
It would help us keep that historic building.
How much are we willing to pay to keep a historic building?
It’s at least 3x more expensive to fix that building then to erect a new one.
I don’t get the sentimentality about the building. If my old high school was torn down tomorrow I wouldn’t care at all, so long as current students had a suitable replacement to attend.