New school in Waverley West won't include some Bridgwater families blocks away

Parents who bought homes in Winnipeg's Bridgwater neighbourhoods will have to continue sending their children to schools in other areas even though construction will start next year ontwo new schools just blocks away.

"The school that will be built nearly in my backyard is a different catchment," said Jon Bailey, a dad of two young boys living in Bridgwater Forest. "So now we live in a neighborhood that doesn't have a rec centre and doesn't have a school that we can actually go to, which is lined with walking paths that lead basically nowhere."

On Wednesday evening, about 70 people sat in Acadia Junior High's gymnasium to hear new detailsabout the planned high school and kindergarten to Grade 8 elementary school that will be built between KenastonBoulevard and Waverley Street on currently empty land. The high school was announced in 2017, while both schools were part of the Manitoba government's 2018 budget.

According to the Pembina Trails School Division, the high school will serve all of Waverley West. The elementary school, however,will only serve newer developments in the area.

The schools will be in an area known asWaverley West B. It's currently an open field with the potential for more development.

The elementary school will serve that new development, as well as Bridgwater Centre. In its early days, the schoolwill also accept students from Prairie Pointe and Bridgwater Trails until new schools are built for those neighbourhoods.

This leaves families in Bridgwater Forest, Bridgwater Lakes and certain areas of Prairie Pointe to continue sending their elementary-age children to schools in other areas.

"We have to balance between having space for the kids who are going to come into the area, and addressing the crowded K-8 schools elsewhere," superintendent Ted Fransen told CBC News.

"The provincial government expects us to make full use of empty seats, and so we have room for all of our Bridgwater Forest students to attend school in Waverley Heights. Students who live in Bridgwater Lakes, they go to school in Whyte Ridge."

'You have to supply us with amenities'

Some who have lived in the Bridgwater areas for years say this is just another example of how their neighbourhood is incomplete.

"There's no sense of community in BridgewaterForest. People don't identify with their neighborhood because they don't know who their neighbours are," Bailey said.

"They don't know who their neighbours are because they don't go to school together, they don't play sports together, they don't swim together, they don't go to the library together. They don't have any of those services."

Mike Shawn has lived in Bridgwater Forest for seven years and bringshis oldest son to Waverley Heights, but lives about a five-minute walk from the catchment's dividing line.He says he built his family's house in that neighbourhood because he was promised a community, but so far he hasn't seen a nearby school or a public recreation centre.

"It's really disappointing when when the amenities that you expect from a neighbourhood to have a lively neighbourhood aren't there," he said.

"We're also dealing with deficits in this city and that's the nature of the world we live in, but you have to supply us amenities. We also pay a lot of property taxes, and I expect a return on my investment."

Construction on the new schools is set to begin in spring 2020. The school division says the goal is to open on Sept. 1, 2022.