Prairie Rose sets priorities in capital plan

By ANNA SMITH Local Journalism Initiative on March 27, 2024.

asmith@medicinehatnews.com

Prairie Rose Public Schools hosted a virtual public meeting Tuesday in order to discuss its 2025-2028 capital plan.

The plan needed to be approved by the end of March, which in turn necessitated the extra meeting. Chief financial officer Ryan Boser briefly spoke to the contents of the plan during the meeting, outlining priorities of the division for the near future.

“Our No. 1 remains Parkside School this year, so a modernization of Parkside School. And, of course, we’re in the design stage right now of this particular project,” said Boser. This design now includes schematics, with the full design planned to be complete by November.

“The idea that we would advocate this for construction funding next February, to ultimately receive that will be the whole point,” said Boser. “So that’s what we’ll advocate for.”

The following priorities included a K-12 school for Oyen, said Boser, as they aim to get the value scoping of this project done, as well as a replacement for Burdett School, which has already had value scoping completed.

“The fourth option here is a new one, which is an Eagle Butte High School expansion. Our numbers in Eagle Butte have grown significantly over the last number of years,” said Boser. “So although we’ve had renovation in the last 10 years at Eagle Butte High School, we’re also advocating for an expansion, to grow the school and ultimately .. (we) need that for the increase in enrolments. And so that’s why that’s on there as our priority No. 4 at this point.”

It was noted by trustees that it can be difficult to number priorities, as all the schools are at the top of their list, but for the purposes of the plan, they needed to identify specific projects.

The capital plan was approved by trustees.

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