A new $7.6-million addition to St. Louis Catholic Elementary School in Leamington is now officially open.
A ceremony was held Friday to open the additional student and child care space at the school as a result of funding from the province.
The school now has six additional classrooms to accommodate 147 students.
There is also two new preschool rooms and a toddler room, to accommodate more than 60 additional children, which are expected to open in the near future.
The dual track JK-5 school, which offers both English and French Immersion, has around 500 students.
Director of Education at the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board, Emelda Byrne, says this has created a lot of additional space at the school...
"Leamington as you know is a rapidly expanding community, so in order to accommodate the increased growth, we needed the actual expansion here at St. Louis," she says.
Byrne says this will relieve some of the space issues.
"We've had four portables on site, so there's a great need. The Leamington community continues to grow. We actually had to move our Grade 6 students over to the middle school, which is Grade 6 to 8."
The Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board funding from the Ministry of Education’s 2019-20 Capital Priorities Program and the Child Care Capital Funding Program to construct the six classroom addition and childcare spaces, which were designed by Architecttura Inc., and built by Front Construction Industries, Inc. of Windsor.