The total re-construction of the Harriet Todd Public School on George Street is just about complete. Brad Parkes, the Assistant Manager Design and Contruction Services for the Simcoe County District School Board says that everything will be ready to go for the start of the school year.
Last year Harriet Todd was closed down to do a major haul of the school. The kids were moved to Hillcrest and Mount Slaven for the school year 2010-2011. Parkes says the school and the kids handled the temporary situation well, while Harriet was being totally overhauled.
Parkes says there is not an area of the school they did not touch, front to back, top to bottom. Parkes says the back part of the school, the 1968 addition, was totally rebuilt. They stripped it down to the frame, structurally re-enforced it, put new wall systems in the outside, new heating and air-conditioning.
Parkes says the school is mostly accessible now. They’ve added an elevator that goes to most of the school. They is still the two-storey part of the school at the front that they are working on a solution for.
Parkes says they have enlarged the parking lot, created new “kiss-and-ride” areas for parents, areas for buses to unload. That means that now they’ve separated the buses and the cars, where there was always conflict in the past between the two.
Around 550 students will be attending the school this year.
The cost of construction for the project was 4.8-million dollars.
