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Vancouver School Board is giving up ownership of the property housing Ecole Anne-Hebert elementary in a deal to raise capital to complete new schools at UBC.
The decision stems from the first phase of the district's educational facilities review focused on Dunbar.
In mid-June, staff recommended a then-unnamed and unused school district property be transferred to the province. The move would raise much-needed money to cover renovation costs at UBC's National Research Council building, which will be transformed into a secondary school, and to modernize and convert University Hill secondary into an elementary school. The high school would have an initial capacity for 675 students and be completed after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Last week, Ecole Anne-Hebert was named as the property that will be transferred from the VSB following much speculation. The Vancouver School Board had been leasing the site to the francophone education authority. An agreement approved by the Ministry of Education will see Ecole Anne-Hebert at 7051 Killarney St. in Fraserview transferred to the Conseil Scolarie Francophone (School District), a provincial education program, no later than 2010 at fair market value.
Some financing details with the Ministry of Education and UBC need to be finalized, but district management said there was sufficient commitment among all parties to move forward.
Board chairman Clarence Hansen believes it's the best solution to the district's educational needs. "In many ways it's a win-win situation. We have money now to develop UBC schools," he said. "We also have the province in control of a school property in Vancouver. Right now we'd have to have permission from the province to do anything with [our properties], so it hasn't changed anything too dramatically even in terms of future needs."
B.C. Assessment valued the Ecole Anne-Hebert property at $9.1 million in its 2008 assessment roll report. But Hansen believes it could be worth much more.
He said the lease was worth about $400,000 annually and expects that loss of revenue will be offset by increasing numbers of students enrolled in distributed learning, also known as distance or online learning, programs.
The deal saves Queen Elizabeth annex, which the board had considered closing and selling--an option opposed by annex parents. The West Side school will remain open, but the regular English program will be slowly phased out in favour of French immersion.
Hansen noted some secondary student parents are concerned the NRC building won't be completed soon enough, but he added the board will try to speed the work up as much as possible. "Other than the timeline, everybody is happy that we're moving forward," he said.
Glen Hansman, president of the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers' Association, said his organization is going on the assumption that the decision to give up the Ecole Anne-Hebert property was a last resort for the school board.
"It wouldn't have been the preferred choice of VESTA in that it is a public asset. [It is] being handed over to another public school board, which is great, but we still feel that the province has put school districts like Vancouver in unfortunate circumstances instead of contributing the amount that it should be to capital projects like renovating schools and dealing with seismic upgrading," he said.
"It's kind of making lemonade out of lemons. I definitely wouldn't be OK with it going to the ministry or it being sold off to a public party. The fact it's going to another public school district, the francophone authority, is a bit of a silver lining on that dark cloud, but the VSB shouldn't have to be selling off assets."
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