School 036

Groundbreaking ceremony for new primary school

On December 9, the Commission scolaire des Portages de l’Outaouais (CSPO) held an official groundbreaking ceremony to mark the beginning of construction work on the new 036 elementary school.

Schools are overflowing due to population growth in Aylmer and the Plateau. The school, which will be at 395 Boul de l’Amérique-Française, is for up to 744 students.

The new school will have four pre-school classes each for 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds and 24 elementary-school classes. It will open in September 2021.

The construction of this school has been pending since 2016, when the Ministry of Education (MEES) allocated just over $13 million to the CSPO.  

At the time, CSPO aimed to open in 2018. There was a delay to 2019, then another to 2020 due to difficulties in acquiring the land and then a last one to 2021, due to changes in the terms of the agreements, in line with the government’s required 4-year-old kindergarten classes. 

On October 9, the CSPO commissioners learned, at a closed meeting, that the construction deadlines would not be 12 months, but 17 months with a deadline that would have required the transfer of students from one institution to another in March.

Ultimately, these new delays further extended the school opening date to 2021, a delay that allowed the MEES to grant the CSPO just over $4 million in funding for the school to allow the addition of 4-year-old kindergarten classes that were no longer planned in the project. 

The final contract for the construction of the school awarded $17,273,880 to Industries CAMA. (Trans.: BA)