New King City Public School in the works for 2009 academic year
By Bill Rea

Plans are progressing to build a new facility for King City Public School.

But it will mean students will have to be accommodated elsewhere for a year, and the current proposal is to put them in an area of nearby King City Secondary School.

The new building is slated to go on the property currently occupied by the senior campus of the school, on King Boulevard. The plan is to have it ready for students by September 2009, Principal Karen Goan reported.

According to a presentation made last month by staff of the York Region District School Board, King City has been a candidate replacement school since last year, based on building renewal requirements and anticipated housing growth in the village.

The plan, according to the staff presentation, is to replace the the existing senior campus with a building that can accommodate 458 students from junior kindergarten to Grade 8. Once the new school is open, the younger students will go there, rather than to the Eva L. Dennis campus on Warren Road.

The plan also includes having the Dennis campus take in the Grade 4s for the 2008-'09 school year, along with its usual JK to Grade 3s.

There had been some concerns about Grade 5 to 8 students going to a high school for a year, but others believe it will be beneficial for them. Superintendent of Schools Dennis Connor said it should help. "It's a great touch for the younger kids to have an idea of what a high school looks like before they get there," he observed.

He added board staff is looking into what's to be done with the Dennis campus once the new school opens.

Goan said there's a lot of eager anticipation of the development, with both the school community and staff excited at the thought of everything eventually being under one roof. "This is a good news story for King City," she declared.

"It will be a brand new, state-of-the-art facility for our students," she said, adding there will be a cost saving too. Students at the Dennis campus will no longer have to be bused a couple of blocks for their gym classes.

The proposal has been discussed before the school council, and Goan said a community meeting will be held, but the date has not yet been set.

The school council is also enthused with the plan, according to council head Romana Outhwaite.

She said they have seen the plans.

"It looks beautiful," she declared. "The children of King City are just going to love it."

"It will be nice to have the kindergartens to Grade 8s under one roof," she added.

Outhwaite also said the staff presentation addressed a lot of the concerns some people raised, such as integrating younger kids with high school students. She agreed the older kids might be intimidating, but pointed out they start class at 8:20 a.m., while the younger kids start at 9. Also, she said the public school students will be housed in a segregated area.

She did understand not all of the potential problems have been ironed out. For example, Outhwaite said they haven't worked out how there will be a separate public address system for the younger classes, but they are working on it. "It's worked before for other schools in the past," she said.