Replace Hants East Rural High School with new building, parents urge

A group of parents in the East Hants area say it's time the province built them a new school to replace the 60-year-old Hants East Rural High School.

Parents have put together a Facebook page calling for a replacement and have posted photos of damaged lockers, water fountains that don't work and damage in washrooms.

​"My daughter came home and said there's no point in paying for a locker because nobody uses them," said Natasha Hawco, whose daughter is in Grade 9. "The lockers are pretty beat up and mouldy."

Petition for school

Her group has put together a petition demanding a new school, and have passed it along to their MLA — Environment Minister Margaret Miller.

Miller promised to take a look at the school in the coming days and has arranged to bring Education Minister Karen Casey with her.

"Certainly having a new school would be nice," Miller said. "But the reality is most of the new schools going in don't have the same kind of facilities. They don't have the huge gyms. They don't have the huge audio visual rooms."

'Why not here?'

Miller explained to the parents that those extras are paid for by community fundraisers. Hawco said it's a matter of fairness.

Consider, she said, the new high schools in Bedford, Halifax and plans in Eastern Passage.

"When you see how it can be, then it kind of makes you really anxious for you to have it here too," Hawco said. "Why not here?"

School board staff said Hants East Rural High School is on its priority list for capital improvements, but it's not at the top.

"We've got some other schools that have some larger issues that need to be dealt with before Hants East," said Debbie Buott-Matheson, a spokesperson for the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board.

"It's on the list. It's just not at the top of the list."

Board plans 'addition and alteration'

Buott-Matheson said there have been more than $800,000 in repairs to the school since 2007. But the work is routine — the roof, heating systems, windows and doors — needed to meet basic regulatory requirements. 

She admits it's showing its age.

"This is a living, working building so it goes through a lot of wear and tear," she said.

The school board's plan, she says, is "addition and alteration."

"What that means is some lovely renovations to the school that would help to modernize it," Buott-Matheson said.