A potential NDP election candidate and a Liberal hopeful have a beef with the proposed new F.H. Collins Secondary School.

Peter Lesniak and Dan Curtis say the fact that the school's trades wing will not be replaced in the new $52.5-million school just doesn't make sense.

Curtis, the Liberal candidate for Riverdale South, told the Star last week his frustration comes from the lack of education for skilled trades at the high school level.

"I'm really, really disappointed that we're talking about this state-of-the-art school, and if it were not for a small army of trades people, the school wouldn't be built at all,” he said.

Curtis graduated from F.H. Collins 30 years ago. He has been the executive director of Skills Canada Yukon for the last six years.

The trades wing, as far as he knows, hasn't been changed since it was built in 1963.

"I think the only thing that's been updated is the ventilation system in the woodworking shop,” he said. "We're not showing what's available using equipment so antiquated.”

LastWednesday, the Yukon government unveiled a sign to mark the beginning of work on the new school project. Shovels, though, won't actually hit the dirt until the spring, with contractors busy preparing the site until early next year.

As plans stand now, the old school – except for the trades wing – will be demolished and a new facility will be built on property overlapping the existing school.

Lesniak, who is up against the Whitehorse Boys and Girls Club's Dave Blottner for the NDP nomination in Riverdale North, asked Education Minister Rouble why the trades

wing is going to stay while the rest of the school undergoes a costly reconstruction.

"He avoided the question,” said Lesniak. " There has been so much criticism over this, even from Yukon Party members themselves.”

Lesniak, who admitted to be no expert in the trades industry compared to his late colleagues, former MLAs Todd Hardy and Steve Cardiff, said he knows there are a lot of students who are less academically inclined, but very interested in the trades. At the Yukon College, he noted, there is a substantial demand for technical programs.

"We have to start training very early,” he said.

Chris Madden, a communications officer for the Department of Education, said the decision to keep the trades wing was made for several reasons.

"It's a very large and useful facility, in fairly good condition, and extensively upgraded in recent years,” he said in an e-mail.

The cost to replace the wing would have been around $10 million, which is well beyond the project's budget, explained Madden.

Madden also explained that during the school reconstruction, the trades wing will receive a 1.9-million "facelift”. The wing, in the past five years, has recieved $936,000 in upgrades, he added.

Veteran educator Sandra Henderson is the chair of the F.H. Collins School Council and taught French at the school for 17 years. Henderson left the project's building advisory committee this past spring because she felt the group was not taking her advice seriously.

"I believe the shop should be replaced,” Henderson told the Star last Thursday. If the government is going to spend that much money on the project, she said, it might as well build a new trades wing, too.

"It's an old building. It's always had air quality problems and wasn't up to code originally,” she said. Henderson believes bringing the trades wing up to code now is not the best way to spend the money.

The retired teacher is skeptical of the new state-of-the-art school design. The structure itself, she said, does not equate to quality of education.

"We need a new school. But a new school doesn't provide a good education,” said Henderson. "You can be in a shanty and get a good education.”

The quality, she continued, comes from the curriculum, educators and students themselves.

Whether the school will actually be built is a question both election candidates and Henderson are asking themselves.

"Just before their mandate is up, they put a sign up?” asked Curtis, referring to the government's press conference held last Wednesday. "It took them nine years to do that?”

The current school was built before he was born, he noted.

"I just hope the new one is built before I die,” he said.

By Nadine Sander-Green

Star Reporte