Beaumont parents push for new school amid crowding

Parents in Beaumont, Alta.,are outraged that crowded classrooms have forced their kids to have lessons in a community hall across the street from the school. They're calling for a new school to be built to accommodate children.

Tina Marie Baldwin, the school council chair at cole Bellevue Elementary, said the situation is dire as the building is bursting at the seams.

"We need a new school, we need more bathrooms for our kids, we need not to have these makeshift classrooms," she said. "It's just really a lot of kids there."

Baldwin, whose two sons go to Bellevue Elementary, has heard similar complaints from other parents about the overcrowding.

A new school is urgent, she said, adding that one has been needed now for the past five years.

"One of the big things I wanted as parent council chair was to introduce a milk program to the school, and we can't even do that because we don't have enough space to put a refrigerator," Baldwin said.

The superintendent of Black Gold Regional Schools, Norm Yanitski, agrees more class space is needed in the community. He says four modular classrooms will be set up in two Beaumont schools this fall to help ease overcrowding.

cole J.E. Lapointe and cole Coloniale Estates will get two modular classrooms each.

Yanitski says the district has requested the province build a newschool in Beaumont.

"We are ready for a new school, as we speak," he said. "We have requested it and we are hoping that there is an annoucement in thenear future."