Philipsburg:--- Minister of Education Rhoda Arrindell signed off on the agreement with Taliesin Construction to begin the construction of a new elementary school in Cay Hill. Angela Dekker of DERPI told reporters that the construction of the new school is to the tune of 7,291,364.00 guilders which will be financed by USONA. Construction Dekker said, will begin in next 10 days and it is expected to last for period of 18 months.The new Foundation Based Education (FBE) School will consist of 16 classrooms, a gym, a section for early childhood education, a staff room and a space for the school board.
The new school which has been in the making for quite some years will be managed by the board of the Hillside Christian School Board headed by Asha Stevens.
Dekker said the gym space at the new school will also be placed at the disposal of other schools that currently do not have access to gym space and more focus will be placed on physical education.
Head of New Projects Kurt Ruan said the signing of the agreement for the new school can be considered a milestone, a project he said that took of a lot of work especially to acquire the building permit. The project he said is a huge educational project which cost some 7.2 million guilders. Ruan said the signing shows that education is government's priority and when all hands are on deck then great things can be achieved.Hillside Christian School's Principal Asha Stevens said the signing is of great importance because it has been years now her school had been working on the project. Stevens said she has documents dating back to 2006 on the expansion of the Christian Hillside School but the project was not moving because there were other plans that had more priority. Ruan said one the things that will happen is that with the relocation of the Hillside school from St. Peters will divert some of the traffic congestion from the that area.
Stevens said that the intention is to move eight classrooms that are currently housed in the emergency classrooms at the St. Peters location. When the new school is completed it is expected that some 200 new students can be added to the Hillside family.