Oakville North-Burlington MPP Effie Triantafilopoulos and Minister of Education Stephen Lecce announced on Thursday, April 21, 2022, that new provincial funding for the education system would be used in part to build a new elementary school in northeast Oakville.
The new public school's location will be between Oodenawi Public School in Glenorchy and south of HWY 407, though the lands between the 407 and Burnhamthorpe are zoned commercial.
The school is designed to accommodate 788 plus students and 88 daycare spots at the cost of $23.9 million.
Triantafilopoulos said this would be the fifth school the provincial government has funded in her riding during the past four years.
According to HDSB, there are currently 89 elementary schools operating within the board. Triantafilopoulos says that this new school is being built to accommodate northeast Oakville’s rapidly developing population.
"This new elementary school will support growth in northeast Oakville’s growing community and will complement great education offerings at Oodenawi P.S. and Dr. David R. Williams P.S.," said Curtis Ennis, the Director of Education at HDSB.
Ennis says that this school will relieve some of the pressures from new residential development in the area and that it will feed into a new high school, “Oakville NE #1 HS,” which is also in its design phase.
The Ford government says that the new education funding will create 788 student spaces, 88 licensed childcare spaces and five new childcare rooms for HDSB.
Education policy has been a sticking point between the three big provincial parties over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will likely feature prominently in their platforms for this summer’s election.
This Halton funding is part of a larger province-wide investment in 37 “school-related projects,” which the province says will include 23 childcare centres.
