Emily Tredger, the NDP MLA for Whitehorse Centre, said she is “very concerned” about the prospects of her riding losing École Whitehorse Elementary School.

“I’ve talked to lots of families who live downtown because they want to be able to walk places and they want their kids to be able to walk places they want,” she told reporters Tuesday.

“They want a community that’s in one neighbourhood where everything’s accessible. And it’s it’s more than just a place for kids to learn. It’s also a community hub.”

The school has served as a community gathering place in downtown Whitehorse for 72 years, she noted.

“And it’s pretty important to a community if you want families to live there, there has to be an elementary school.

“Yeah, I’m very concerned about what will happen if we lose, lose our downtown’s only elementary school,” she said.

“And I’m really afraid that we’ll lose families from downtown and that it won’t be seen as a place that’s welcoming to people of all ages.

“And that’s so important about downtown that everyone from seniors to little kids live there and love it.”

She hopes that “once they’ve moved the French immersion program to Takhini, they could rebuild on the same spot that Whitehorse Elementary is now. To me, that seems like the simplest solution.

“I think there’s a lot of kids who would like to attend school downtown, because even kids in the English stream right now aren’t able to go to school downtown.

“And then kids, even kids who are in the French stream, sometimes they’re still being sent to Selkirk (Elementary School) instead of getting to attend a neighbourhood school,” Tredger said.

“When there’s kids in a neighbourhood, it really changes a place.”