I grew up in on a farm just southwest of Brandon in the Rural Municipality of Cornwallis. I went to school in Brandon for all of my educational endeavours: Meadows Elementary, Earl Oxford Junior High, Neelin High School, and Brandon University. Never did finish at BU, but I’m currently attempting to rectify that situation. Two more courses this year will bring my renewed attempt to three; looking forward to some introductory political science and more psychology. For better or for worse, I’m a product of the Brandon educational system.
I’ve never attended Assiniboine Community College (ACC), but I have two brothers as well as many friends and colleagues who have attended or even taught there. ACC is a valuable piece of our educational puzzle here in Brandon and Westman. When I first saw the plan to move the college to the more spacious and by then unused Brandon Mental Health Centre (BMHC) grounds I thought it was a grand idea and a welcome expansion to our city.
As of 2014, the job is not completely done. The Brandon Sun reports in today’s edition that the main campus, currently at Victoria Avenue East and 17th Street East still needs to be relocated to the Parkland Building at the BMHC site on the North Hill. The move will take millions of dollars and a lot of construction work. For a more detailed rundown and the challenges of the move, the article by Lindsey Enns in the Sun is a good read.
ACC tries to stay on funding radar – Brandon Sun, April 26, 2014 (Paywalled)
One thing that I would urge the provincial government to consider is that when they are considering the move of ACC to its new home and the costs involved, they must also consider the costs involved in waiting too long to complete the project. Yes, there is the regular concern with actual costs going up with inflation that every project has to deal with, but I’m not talking about that. What I’m referring to is other needs of the citizens of Brandon that at first do not appear related to ACC.
My biggest concern is the fact that the Brandon School Division (BSD) has made it known to the province that the city will require another school in the south end in the next few years, presumably for early and middle years students. As a resident of the south end, the fact that some residents in this area end up in the Riverheights catchment area, a school that is in the far west end, shows that this need is most likely very real.
Another thing that I have noticed is that the vocational programs at Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School in the south end always seem to be bursting at the seams. I have had many people, parents and kids, tell me that the most popular programs are difficult to get into. We seem to have a couple of growing problems with education in this end of the city.
Believe it or not, the south end is over-served when it comes to high schools. Neelin and Crocus are essentially on top of each other. They are a 2.2 kilometre walk apart, I suspect that “as the crow flies” they are less than the 1.6 kilometres that the BSD and province use to determine bus eligibility. They are really close.
It seems to me that the solution here would be to look at making Neelin something other than a high school. A short time ago, Earl Oxford was converted to a kindergarten to grade eight school; Neelin with its single story design seems even more suited to such a conversion. That partially solves the problem with the south end not having enough early and middle years capacity. But where does the population of Neelin then end up?
That’s where ACC comes in. If the move to the Parkland Building gets done, that opens up a building in the east end, a building that has hosted an educational institution for years, and a vocational program for years. The former ACC site could very well be home to a new, larger third high school for Brandon after any needed upgrades, and that location would serve the east end, and possibly the north end, better than Crocus and Neelin do now. A second high school in Brandon offering the vocational track seems to be something much needed in this growing city. I would personally be sad to see Neelin no longer be a high school, I graduated from there, but things change.
We need to make sure that we are spending our money in the right places. Yes, it is important to not spend money that we don’t have to, and I commend the government for not just throwing money at the ACC relocation without restraint. However, we need to make sure that that restraint will not cause us to have to build another school when our current infrastructure may do the job in a reconfigured way. Do we spend money on ACC that does not then have to be spent on public schools?
Sometimes spending money now may save you much more later. The question becomes, does this make sense?
I think it does.
