REGINA – A new Francophone Kindergarten to Grade 6 school, école du Parc, has officially opened in Regina.
The school received its grand opening at a ceremony Friday morning attended by government officials and those from the Francophone community, as well as by Lieutenant Governor Bernadette McIntyre.
The new school will hold 325 students, and will include a 51-space child care centre as well as a shared Francophone community space. The cost was $26.9 million, with the Government of Saskatchewan providing $22.2 million and the Government of Canada $4.7 million for the community space.
Minister of Education Everett Hindley took a tour of the new school.
"It's a beautiful facility, and more than just that, it's an opportunity for Francophone students and families in Regina to really have the best opportunity for their academic success," Hindley said. "It's bright and brand, relatively brand new, but just a real jewel, I think, here for Regina and for the Francophone community."
Hindley said that in speaking to the principal, enrollment "is filling up and enrollment is going up now that this school is open. So it's important to be able to do that, to offer this to the Francophone community, and the Government of Saskatchewan is proud to have supported this particular project."
The new school replaces a temporary facility that opened in 2018 on Douglas Ave., which also went by the name Ecole du Parc. The project had been announced prior to the pandemic and Hindley acknowledged that there were some delays with respect to the land location.
"So it did take a little bit longer than I think our schools probably typically take to construct," Hindley said, but "very happy that this opened in January of last year and is serving this community."
As for further investments in Francophone schools in the province, Hindley said there are 15 Francophone schools in Saskatchewan right now, and he said work is in the design phase for two more in Saskatoon and in Prince Albert.
Denis Simard, President, Assemblée communautaire fransaskoise, said there is still much work to be done.
"Statistically, if you look at the numbers, only 20 per cent of Francophone students in Saskatchewan have access to a Francophone school. We're still far from being able to educate all of our kids across the province."
Simard welcomed the new Francophone school for Regina. "This school is actually the first full, brand-new construction school ever built for the French School Board. All other schools were conversions, adaptations, changes, and so this is actually the first built-to-spec for the French community in Saskatchewan. We're super proud of that."
The school will also be a hub for the Francophone community, with a section that houses a couple of community associations. As well, said Simard, "we have a cooperative of early childhood education as well as a parenting program for early childhood that's happening in the program in that space."
He pointed to the impact the school will have on his family's life.
"This is where my daughter goes to school. She's six years old. She's in the kindergarten class. I'm a single dad.
I'm the only one in her life who speaks to her in French every single day. Having a school like this allows me to make sure that she's learning my culture, my roots, and hers as well."
