NDSS requests continue to dominate capital requests

Rachelle Stein-Wotten

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Gabriola Sounder

Major and minor capital submissions for Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools include two for Gabriola Elementary School and multiple for Nanaimo District Secondary School.

The board of education approved its five-year major capital plan for 2025-26 and minor capital request for 2025-26 school year at their June 26 board meeting.

Minor capital submissions are related to projects for health and safety purposes, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, upgrading infrastructure and improving accessibility of playgrounds.

In addition to existing funding program streams, the Ministry of Education and Child Care introduced for this submission round a child care program in both the major and minor capital categories. 

Minor provides funds for small-scale renovations for existing K-12 facilities to create new child care spaces as well as the purchase and installation of fixtures, furniture and equipment required to obtain a license. NLPS will include project requests for four schools: Rutherford, École Hammond Bay, École North Oyster and Gabriola. The Gabriola before and after school care program is scheduled to begin in September with funding to follow. Two schools have requests under the major program, which is reserved for new construction. Like previous years, NLPS has submitted more project requests than it anticipates to receive. The number of minor capital requests for NDSS and Ladysmith Intermediate are meant to highlight the need to replace the schools by demonstrating that upgrades are needed beyond seismic, according to a staff report regarding the capital submissions.

Under the major capital submission, in the expansion program, this year NLPS moved Wellington Secondary to first priority. “Based on status quo catchments and in support of the addition request to NDSS, forecast enrolment for this school would see approximately 10 portables in use in the 29/30 school year driving this expansion request of 250 spaces required,” the staff report says. NDSS remains the top request under replacement and seismic mitigation program requests. The report says it is “clear” that “any expansion to NDSS will be considered at the time of a seismic upgrade and is therefore dependent on support for a project approval via the seismic program.”

Gabriola Elementary is also included in the group 1 priorities for seismic upgrades, as it has in previous years’ submissions.

For the 2024-25 capital submission, NLPS received approval for a seismic upgrade for École North Oyster as well as five minor projects: upgrades to Rutherford Elementary ($898,200), which is scheduled to re-open in September 2025; interior construction upgrades for John Barsby Community School ($514,573); HVAC upgrades to Randerson Ridge Elementary ($678,000); playground accessibility equipment for Mountain View Elementary ($195,000) and kitchen equipment upgrades to Woodlands Secondary ($35,000), which is where school food programs operated by Nanaimo Ladysmith Schools Foundation are based. A bus replacement request was initially not supported by the ministry, but in May, the ministry sent NLPS a letter reversing that decision. 

The school district intends to purchase an electric bus, making it the tenth zero emission bus in the fleet, the maximum the school district’s current charging infrastructure can support.