More than $26 million in school construction projects for the St. Clair District Catholic school board have received final approvals from Ontario’s Ministry of Education.
They include a $21.8-million project to build a new home for Gregory A. Hogan Catholic school in Sarnia and a $4.2-million addition to Sacred Heart Catholic school in Port Lambton.
The new Gregory A. Hogan building will go up on Rapids Parkway and be home for the school board’s French immersion program in Sarnia.
“The process of tendering for a general contractor to lead it is in process, and we’re hoping to have shovels in the ground, if things go well, by May,” said education director Scott Johnson, “and we’re still hoping to be in the site for September 2023.”
At that point, the about 570 pupils at the current Gregory A. Hogan site will move in and about 330 pupils at Sacred Heart Catholic school in Sarnia will move to the original Gregory A. Hogan site on Hogan Drive.
“Our French immersion program has been growing for years,” Johnson said. “At this point, it is the largest populated Catholic elementary school we have in Sarnia-Lambton.”
But the program is “really constricted” at the existing Gregory A. Hogan site, he said.
“This new facility is going to be state of the art – bright, collaborative, flexible learning environments, embedded with new technology to reflect the learning we’ve embraced in the last two years.”
The new building will also be near the board’s St. Patrick’s Catholic high school and St. Anne Catholic elementary school.
“It’s almost building this Catholic campus” on Rapids Parkway, Johnson said.
“There are just incredible opportunities to intersect those three communities through sports, through learning, through professional development, through social justice activities,” he said.
The project includes $4.5 million for a five-room childcare center at the new school building and a $200,000 donation by the Hogan family will help pay for a community room at the site.
“The Gregory Hogan community not only helped design what this school is going to look like, they’ve been really patient” through the process of planning for the start of construction, Johnson said.
He said the school board will also carry out work at the existing Gregory A. Hogan building to prepare for the pupils and staff from Sacred Heart school.
“They’ll be walking into a newer facility than the one they are currently learning in,” he said.
Construction of an addition at Sacred Heart Catholic school in Port Lambton is also expected to begin in May and be completed for September 2023.
It will replace a “port-a-pac” of portable classroom with two new classrooms, as well as add three new childcare rooms.
Johnson said the project also includes work on the school’s parking lot, addition of a larger interior hallway and three outdoor playground spaces.
“It will be breathing life into an older facility and removing the port-a-pac that has been there for over three decades,” he said. “These two new classrooms will be a bright and welcome addition to the school.”