'We haven't been able to 'proceed; with anything.'

The Iqaluit District Education Authority says it cannot hold public consultations on major upgrades to Inuksuk High, planned to start this year, because the Department of Education still hasn't explained what options are available.

Lori Idlout, chair of the IDEA, said her group has spent two months trying to pry information from the department on how the major renovations, expected to cost more than $20 million, will affect children, to no avail.

The IDEA had scheduled a public meeting on the matter in December, but the meeting was cancelled when no information became available.

"We haven't been able to proceed with anything," Idlout said.

A department spokesperson said a number of plans should be ready by the end of January.

Frustrated parents continue to phone Idlout, asking where their children will attend classes this coming autumn.

An option floated earlier this year would have sent high school students to attend class at Aqsarniit Middle School while the renovations were underway. Classes would have been staggered, with some students attending class early in the morning, and others late in the afternoon, in order to squeeze two school's worth of students into one building.

This plan has been abandoned, Idlout said, after it was determined that the timetable conflicts arising from the plan would create too much trouble for students.

"It became obvious that would not be a very good option to consider," she said.

Since then, the department has tried to modify the existing design to allow children to safely attend class while renovations are underway. But, as yet, no details are being disclosed as to what's being changed in the design.

Plans unveiled last year show proposed to essentially tear the old school down to its foundations and put a new building in its place. The new school would have big windows, wider hallways, and a large skylight in the shape of a kayak to let light into the main foyer.

If education staff decide it's too dangerous to keep kids in the building during construction, they will need to find a new location.

With other schools ruled out, there are few sheltered spaces in Iqaluit available with space to hold several hundred children.

The Arctic Winter Games arena is a large, cavernous space with makeshift plywood floors to conceal holes drilled to examine the building's waterlogged foundations.

The old residence of the Arctic college is out of the way, near the end of Federal Road.

Even the military's Forward Operating Location site has been bandied about during discussions with teachers.

But rather than hash these ideas out with the public, the education department has decided to stay quiet for now.

A decision will likely need to be made before April, when tenders for supplies will need to be announced in order to ship building materials up during the sealift season.