The St. Luke Toros believe

The Nipissing-Parry Sound Catholic District School Board marked the beginning of summer with a special groundbreaking ceremony Monday at the future home of the new St Luke Catholic Elementary School.

St Luke's is the amalgamation of St Joseph and Sacred Heart Schools and Director of Education, Anna Marie Bitonti says the new school was born following a two and half year accommodation review process that found both schools were cost prohibitive to fix. Coupled with the issue of declining enrollment she says the board looked at every option open to them, but in the end the right solution was to amalgamate both schools and build a new green state of the art facility.

“At that time both schools were not full to capacity,” she notes.

“And the committee together made up of representatives from both schools thought it only made sense to bring the two schools together and build a brand new facility that would result in good learning.”

“At the end of the day the students were always kept at the centre of all decisions and of all the planning and this is the result when you bring a group together and you work collaboratively



Construction officially got under way Monday following the ceremony and the students are slated to be in their new school at 1516 McKeown Avenue in the fall of 2011. Until then students will continue to attend classes at the old St. Joseph School site on First Avenue.