The choice: pay more, get less; pay less, get more in four years

This week Nunavut's education department is to decide how to proceed with Iqaluit's worn-out, 38-year-old Inuksuk High School.

Two options are on the table. The first: build a new school, at a cost of $48.7 million, by 2012.

The second: renovate Inuksuk High during school breaks, using $21.2 million already set aside for the project, also over the next four years.

One drawback to the first option is it would require Ed Picco, the education minister, to persuade fellow MLAs to give him an additional $27.5 million for the project.

This may prove difficult, Picco said at a public meeting held last Saturday, June 21, because "there's a complaint out there that Iqaluit gets everything."

Three potential sites have been selected for a new school: near Joamie school, near the Road to Nowhere, and near the Arctic Winter Games arena.

Another downside to building a new school is that it would have 6,000 square metres of floor space, making it about 1,000 square metres smaller than the existing Inuksuk High.

It would have no cafeteria, and a smaller library and trade shops. Such facilities were built big for the existing school because it originally served the entire Baffin region.

Now that Iqaluit is but one more community in need of a new school, Picco said, he must be even-handed. The classroom dimensions would remain the same.

The main advantage touted for building a new school from scratch is that it would minimize the disruption faced by teachers, parents and students.

The cohort of students who enter Grade 9 this autumn have already faced two major disruptions: first, when Joamie school burned to the ground and they were shuttled to different locations around town; and second, when renovations to Aqsarniit school faced major delays last school year, forcing students to stagger their schedules, with some students attending school extra-early, and others stuck in class until the early evening.

The main point upon which everyone agreed at Saturday's public meeting was: "We don't want to go through that again."

Another proposal was scrapped earlier this month by the education department, under which kids would have attended class in portables on Nunavut Arctic College property during renovations. That plan was abandoned after its cost was estimated to be in excess of $52 million.

An upside to building a new school is that it would offer a means of getting around design problems inherent in Inuksuk High, which remains structurally sound, but is equipped with tiny, porthole-sized windows.

If the plan to renovate Inuksuk High is pursued, more light would be let inside the building through the rearrangement of fibreglass panels that make up the school's exterior, and by uncovering window panels that are currently blocked up.

But there will be no new big windows, as originally promised when renovation plans were released in autumn. These plans, which included an ostentatious kayak-shaped skylight in the centre of the school, proved too costly and have since been scaled back.

The renovations now proposed are more modest. The first year of renovations would be spent cleaning and upgrading the ventilation system, and giving the entire school a thorough clean and washing.

Year two would be spent renovating classrooms with new paint, flooring, furniture and lights.

Year three would be spent opening the school up to more sunlight. And year four would be used to upgrade areas such as the Tisi general assembly space, shops and cafeteria.

Some at the meeting worried that these upgrades won't provide the necessary upgrades to areas such as the shops, which provide activities for students who are more likely than others to drop out.

But most concerns at the meeting were directed at the proposal to build a new school. The loudest critic was local businessman Kenn Harper.

He told Picco that "contractors don't want to work for you," because of poor treatment they receive from the Government of Nunavut. Because of this, he anticipates substantial cost overruns.

"In my mind, it's a $75 million new school," he said.

Harper also complained that every new building put up by the GN is "more grandiose and gaudy" than the last.

"Architects will tell you anything you want to hear in order to get the work," Harper said. "I, personally, don't believe them."

And he suggested the decision to build a new school may be prompted by the impending territorial election in October. Harper said any "serious discussion" of a new school should be put off until after that time.

To this last remark, Picco objected.

"If there was a bias towards building a new school," he said, "I would have built a new school."