The Western Québec School Board is temporarily moving its Shawville adult education centre to Fort-Coulonge as renovations at the school’s future building in Campbell’s Bay are behind schedule.
The Pontiac Continuing Education Centre (PCEC) was originally scheduled to move into its former building at 26 rue Leslie in Campbell’s Bay this summer after renovations were complete, with classes beginning at the new location in September.
This permanent move was planned so that students and staff from Onslow Elementary School in Quyon could move into the PCEC’s space at the back of Dr. S.E. McDowell Elementary School in Shawville this September, to allow for significant renovations at Onslow.
But in a video posted to the centre’s Facebook page on Aug. 17, director Debra Stephens said some unexpected discoveries during the renovations have meant the Campbell’s Bay building won’t be ready in time for classes to start.
“People have worked really hard to come up with a plan B,” she said, explaining that instead, classes would be temporarily relocated to the adult education centre buildings run by the Centre de services scolaire des Hauts-Bois-de-l’Outaouais in Fort-Coulonge.
She also noted the first day of classes will be Wednesday, Sept. 9 instead of Tuesday, Sept. 8 to allow for a little more time to move to Fort-Coulonge.
Western Québec School Board director general Pascal Proulx said the renovation challenges were discovered in July, and that the school board has been working since then to find a solution that wouldn’t delay classes.
“It’s an old building that we were not using since a couple of years so it deteriorated a little more than what we thought,” he said.
“The building director was saying the [additional] major work that had to be done afterwards were things that were not able to be seen when they first made the inspections to the building,” added communications director Eldon Keon.
Proulx said nursing students will join the French school centre’s nursing program taught out of of École secondaire Sieur de Coulonge, and the rest of the students will be moved to the Centre Pontiac building in Fort-Coulonge. He said the Campbell’s Bay building should be ready to receive the Continuing Education Centre at the end of October.
“I want to say that we have a really good collaboration with the French school board, and we’ve been able to collaborate to find a solution,” Proulx said.
Keon added that in the meantime, there will be no changes to what the school can offer its 78 registered students.
“That was one of the reasons those buildings were selected because they could accommodate the programming.”
The school board has organized buses to transport students from Shawville to Fort-Coulonge and back every day, with buses leaving Pontiac High School at 8:30 a.m. and returning from Fort-Coulonge at 3 p.m. Proulx noted these times may be adjusted as the school year gets underway.
People interested in registering as students with the school may still do so and begin classes in September.
As for Onslow’s temporary move to Shawville, Proulx said everything was on track for the beginning of the school year, and that administrations at both McDowell and Onslow had worked out how they will be sharing the building and property.
“We’re trying to find out what is the best way to proceed with major renovations. For years we’ve been doing the renovations at the same time as students were in the building, and we know that’s really disturbing for the education,” Proulx said.
He said moving students, staff and administration to new locations to allow for more major renovations is a pilot project – the board’s attempt at finding the least disruptive way to ensure its buildings stay up to date.
