A trustee with the Greater Essex County District School Board is continuing her push to see if all options are examined before four school tracks are removed.
Sarah Cipkar, the trustee for wards 3, 4, and 10, put forward a notice of motion during Tuesday's Board meeting asking that administration and the Director of Education, Vicki Houston, work with community partners to pursue viable options for tracks.
In September 2023, a report was presented during the Board meeting regarding the track conditions at Belle River District High School, Massey Secondary School, Herman Academy Secondary School, and Windsor Stadium for W.C. Kennedy Collegiate Institute.
It was determined during that meeting that the costs to replace those tracks would be in the millions, and it was recommended they be removed and replaced with grass.
Many in the community want the tracks to remain, and it was discussed during Tuesday's meeting that some community partners have reached out to potentially help with the cost of repairs.
Cipkar says between last fall and now there have been many groups reaching out to help.
"There have been a number of community partners who have come forward and indicated that they would really like to help, and do something with the tracks, several of the different tracks, different municipalities, community groups, etc. So the motion was really designed to direct our administration to work with them, and be able to put something forward back to trustees."
She says tracks are really valuable, but there isn't money allocated for them.
"Unfortunately the Ministry of Education doesn't provide any funding for tracks, even in our new builds we don't have that funding. And so it's a difficult situation when we have a lot of capital repairs for our older schools, and that money essentially competes for the money to repair tracks."
Cipkar says there is still a cost associated to remove the tracks from these four schools.
"Some community partners were coming forward and saying 'hold on, we could see a world where potentially we can offset some of that cost, or we could come in at cheaper bids', depending on if it was a contractor, and so potentially instead of full removal, we could repave them and have them maintained with support from the community, from the municipality. So this could actually be a cost savings for the board in the long run."
She adds while the original motion was to have these talks prior to the completion of the 2024-25 budget, that part was removed from the motion and will now be held with no timeline.
The work for removal of the tracks has not yet been tendered, so administration has time to gather information for trustees.