With an entire wing of the high school in Langenburg closed because of air quality issues, the need is greater than ever for the new building. That came one major step closer to fruition December 5 with the official groundbreaking for the new K-12 facility.
“It’s a great day for our community, we’ve been waiting a long time,” said Don Fogg, Langenburg mayor. “This sets up our community for the next 50 years and it’s a great day.” In addition to serving the current population, he said it is an important issue for many prospective residents.
“One of the big things when anybody is looking is education and health care and stuff like that and with a brand new school like this I think it’s going to be a draw for our community.”
Lois Smandych explained it will not just be a place for kids to get an education, but a focal point for the community with two gyms that can be opened up to create a large auditorium and a fitness centre for all residents.
The town raised funds to include the fitness centre. The mayor said they also factored into the design the future possibility of tying the building into a community pool the town is considering building.
“It is so rewarding for all the hard work and for what everyone wanted to do,” Smandych said. “Quite often you have a dream and you hope everything will come together, but when it actually starts to come together, it’s just an awesome feeling.
”It is coming together largely because of the $23 million commitment by the provincial government. Local MLA Bob Bjornerud represented Education Minister Don Morgan and the Province at the groundbreaking ceremony.
“When you see something like this come together, it’s just a great day,” Bjornerud said. “The next best day is going to be the day we open the doors and I hope I’m going to be around to take part in that.
”If all goes to plan that day will be the first day of school in September 2016. Crews will be working through the winter to make that happen. As the ceremonial shovels went into the ground Premier Brad Wall was tweeting about 15,300 new jobs in Saskatchewan in the past year.
With all that activity, enrolment in the province’s schools is projected to grow. Bjornerud said the government is working on making sure the infrastructure is there. “We’ve got a number of new schools on the go right now and some of them are being renovated, but you see what happened to this school here, it just shows the need that we have,” he said.
“We have an infrastructure problem right across the province along with the growing population, which is one of the best things we’ve had happen to the province for years. When we see more young families moving into places like Langenburg, it just bodes well for the future of the province.
”He said it is a challenge that the government will be looking to the private sector and communities to help solve. We’re going to be using triple-P partnerships to make some of this happen,” he said. “There’s no way we can afford this ourselves at the present time all at once to get them as we need them.”
