NDP Leader Liz Hanson and nine of the party's election candidates surrounded the Yukon government's new construction sign at F.H. Collins Secondary School this morning.

Their message was clear: a sign isn't enough.

Just two weeks before Premier Darrell Pasloski called the Oct. 11 election, the government unveiled a sign announcing the beginning of construction work on the new, $52.5-million high school.

The contractor will not, though, begin actual construction until the spring of 2012.

"Just as tent city is symbolic of the Yukon Party's failure to address the housing crises, so too is this location,” said Hanson.

"We're standing here in front of a sod-turning ceremony to nowhere.”

Hanson said her party will not be doing photo opportunities "until the job is done.”

She promised that an NDP government would honour the existing construction contracts. That means having a new school ready for students to move into by the fall of 2013.

The current school, which opened in 1963, will be demolished after the new school is constructed on overlapping property. The only part of the school to remain is the trades wing.

Hanson didn't indicate whether the NDP would build a new trades wing or stay with the government's plans of keeping the old one, a decision Liberal and NDP candidates Dan Curtis and Peter Lesniak said recently just doesn't make sense.

Sandra Henderson, the chair of the F.H. Collins School Council, left the project's building advisory committee earlier this summer because she, too, believes the trades wing should be replaced.

Hanson said at this morning's news conference the NDP would look at a number of proposals in development at how trades education can be improved in the territory and expand the trades wings accordingly.

"The trades wing is essentially the same trades wing that's been there since the beginning of time with this school,” she said.

The NDP leader also said she would integrate geothermal heating into the new school.

When the Yukon Party unveiled the new school sign last month, Education Minister Patrick Rouble said officials are still "doing that math” on the geothermal component of the school design.

They have the intention of moving forward with the project, he said, if it "makes sense.”

But, in July, the government pulled the geothermal part out of the plans for the new school. It promised to submit a separate application to the Yukon Environmental Socio-economic Assessment Board for that component of the project. That process hasn't started yet, and there's no word on how long it might take.

"This is not the first time that we've lost a opportunity to use geothermal in this city,” said Hanson. "It's a complete lack of planning.”

Hanson also promised to address low high school graduation rates, develop a stronger relationship with the First Nations Education Commission, freeze tuition rates and review government funding at Yukon College.

Trades training, she said, is one of the most important things to look at.

"We need to train more Yukoners for employment in our growing industries,” she said. "That's how we create a stronger and prosperous Yukon.”