The doors to Helen Dixon Centre in downtown Quesnel will be closing in September.
Quesnel School District Superintendent Dan Lowndes confirms that all of the programs currently in the building will be moved in the fall.
“The general building, being that it it fairly old, would require some pretty significant upgrades in order to meet accessibility requirements. An elevator for example and that would come with some pretty significant cost pressures, so there are a number of reasons why programming is moving out of there.”
Lowndes says moving the programs elsewhere also makes sense.
He says McNaughton Centre, which houses the alternate programming for students, is moving to the old Baker School.
“McNaughton Centre, being one, moving closer to Correlieu. It allows for more inclusive programming McNaughton Centre and Correlieu.”
Lowndes says the meals program that currently functions out of Helen Dixon will also be going to Baker.
“Some of the storage for the food is already at Baker, so we were able to as part of the move access some grant money to have a renovation at Baker to host all of the meals program together. That’s the program that facilitates our lunch program district wide, so it’ll be much more efficient for us to be able to have that housed in one space.”
The strong start program, currently at Baker, will be moved out to make room for new programs.
“The strong start that is currently located in Baker will be moving to within Riverview Elementary. The goal is really for us to have those strong start programs running in schools in order to support that transition from pre-K services into the K environment, so it’s going to where it really should be.”
Lastly, Indigenous Education, currently at Helen Dixon,
“We were looking at the details between either Carson or Ecole Red Bluff Lhtako to move the program and it makes far more sense for us at this time to be having the program out of Carson.”
As for what will now happen with Helen Dixon, Lowndes says the District isn’t sure at this point what it plans to do with the building or the property.
