Watch above: After months of delays, the new schools in Willowgrove are set to open March 9, 2015. Meaghan Craig looks at what caused the delays and if anything will change when building future schools.
SASKATOON – In a little over a week, both Holy Family Catholic School and Willowgrove Public School will officially open their doors to students and class will be in session.
“It was just neat to hear their screams and their cheers and so the staff, certainly the children and I know the families are really, really excited the day has finally come,” said Connie Tenaski, principal of Holy Family.
Both schools are in the home stretch as crews prepare the site to be safe and secure for students come March 9.
“It’s not going to be 100 per cent ready, it’s certainly will be ready for them but we want this to be their school so we want them to have input in the finishing touches,” added Tenaski.
The facility was first set to be complete last April then September, January and now March.
READ MORE: Two new Saskatoon schools set to open in March
“The actual facility itself consists of two schools, a daycare facility and city recreation component so it’s more than just a standard one off school, four partners building an integrated facility so there’s a lot of coordination required there,” explained Stan Laba, superintendent of facilities for Saskatoon Public Schools.
The joined facility also had two different design consultants and one general contractor.
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“There’s a complicated process around communication protocols, around sign-offs and we wanted to make sure that everybody was aware of how this project was developing so we came up with a system that worked but it did add time.”
Public school officials says other factors that contributed to delays were weather and the availability of trades and sub-trades.
“The market conditions over those two years have been challenging to this project because there are a lot of other competing projects not only in Saskatoon and surrounding area but Saskatchewan and the other prairie provinces.”
That is in addition to a somewhat unrealistic timeline proposed by the contractor.
“We knew that it was a very ambitious schedule from day one and we knew that April 2014 was really going to be long shot but that’s what the general contractor proposed and that’s what we went with.”
The nearly $40-million building ($31 million was for the two schools) is said to be “delivered a little late in terms of time but it’s under-budget.”
According to Laba, four new P3 schools are scheduled to be built over two years in Saskatoon starting in August. They will be delivered through a different model but school officials say as always pray for good weather.
“Be prepared for the unexpected and deal with them in a proactive, open active manner and know that you have a team all pulling in the same direction as you and good things happen,” added Laba.
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