Catholic board still pushing for new school at Windsor Arena

Members of the central Windsor community support a recommendation to build a new Catholic Central high school on the former Windsor Arena property.

Residents had a chance to look over an accommodation review committee's final recommendation report last night.

Barb Holland, the chairperson of the school board, said people realize Catholic Central was built in 1929 and can no longer satisfactorily house today's student population."

Holland called it "simply is prohibitive to repair" Catholic Central.

"So we would like to take advantage of the generous offer made by the City of Windsor to provide us with lands at the current city arena so that we can build a new structure," Holland said.

The new school is dependent on Ministry of Education funding.

"We do know the ministry is generally supportive of this," Holland said. "We have to work closely with the ministry to ensure this happens in a timely fashion for our students."

In the report, however, staff warns of a gym shortage at the Windsor Arena site, calling it "a nightmare." It also is concerned about green space.

"Team practice times and scheduling with all three schools would be a nightmare as CCH has three gyms currently and this is not enough to accommodate four gym classes and/or team practices in an efficient manner," the report reads.

"Also with regard to green space there is concern that there is the possible inability of a regulation size field being able to be on this site for secondary football and soccer teams."

A second option is to merge Catholic Central into Brennan high school.

"This committee and the community at large vehemently opposed this option," the report says.

There are several options.