Rosedale Public School declared surplus, to be sold off

The Algoma District School Board (ADSB) has officially declared Rosedale Public School surplus, and will now begin the process of looking for a prospective buyer for the property and building, located at 90 Chapple Avenue.

The move to sell off Rosedale was announced during Tuesday’s board of trustees meeting, just hours after its newly-constructed replacement, Boreal French Immersion Public School, held its ribbon cutting ceremony and open house in order to celebrate that school’s inaugural year.  

“It’s still in good condition, but it will be used for somebody else’s purpose, not ours,” said superintendent of business and operations Joe Santa Maria.

The school board now needs to identify if there’s any interest in the Rosedale property from local public sector agencies and First Nations interests.

If there is no expressed desire from public and First Nations interests to acquire Rosedale, the private sector would then have an opportunity to purchase the property.

Santa Maria didn’t have the numbers in front of him, but he says that declaring Rosedale Public School as surplus will result in savings for the public school board.

“When you close a school, and if you have to keep it for awhile, you’re still paying the energy costs to put those students in it, and you don’t get any funding for those buildings,” Santa Maria told SooToday. “So there is a savings.”

The new, $16.5 million Boreal French Immersion Public School will now house all ADSB french immersion students that reside north of McNabb Street, while french immersion students living south of McNabb will attend F.H. Clergue Public School.

The need for additional pupil spaces following the opening of F.H. Clergue resulted in the ADSB keeping Rosedale open for french immersion students from grades 4-8.

“We outgrew the 700 [pupil spaces] on the first day of the school [F.H. Clergue] opening,” Santa Maria said. “So we had to keep Rosedale open, and we operated the two sites from year-to-year for a period of time until we [could] have two sites big enough to be able to handle the capacity.”

Roughly 450 students are enrolled at Boreal French Immersion, while about 550 students are currently enrolled at F.H. Clergue.