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Dec 15,2006 - TriCity News

By Sarah Payne The Tri-City News
Dec 15 2006

Port Moody council wants to know why the school board is going ahead with plans for building new schools when three in PoMo may be closed.

Council was responding to a recent letter from School District 43 indicating it would be making changes to its annual Eligible School Sites Proposal (ESSP), which had been distributed to municipalities in October. The ESSP assembles information on new developments from each municipality, estimates the number of new students expected to come from those developments and proposes locations for new schools where required.

The 2007-’11 plan calls for five new schools (three elementary, one middle and one to be a mix of both), all in northeast Coquitlam.

“We’re wanting to amend the ESSP brought forward to trustees in October because of additional information on housing units in municipalities we’ve recently received,” said Lorcan O’Melinn, SD 43’s secretary treasurer.

New information has come mainly from Port Moody, he added, as well as Coquitlam but will not translate into a new PoMo school being added to the ESSP list.

The school board is considering closing College Park, Coronation Park and Moody elementary schools based on declining enrolment and aging facilities.

The revised ESSP will be discussed at a school board meeting Jan. 16. PoMo council agreed to invite trustees to a committee of the whole meeting before that date to discuss school closures and the ESSP in one sitting.

spayne@tricitynews.com

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