The province has introduced measures to expedite the construction of brand new schools in growing communities.

Building the average school currently takes between four to seven years. The province wants to cut that time down by nearly 50 per cent by giving school boards a more streamlined process to follow.

Key reforms include:

• Prioritizing shovel-ready projects and enhanced accountability requirements as school boards provide realistic project costs and timelines;
• Strengthened accountability framework to reduce approval timelines and stronger project oversight with the introduction of project agreements that lay out key milestones and delivery timelines;
• Standardizing designs of new schools to reduce school board planning time and mitigate scheduling delays;
• Greater collaboration between school boards and municipalities to ensure planning and construction of schools is targeted to ongoing and future growth;
• Reducing red tape with streamlined approval and reporting requirements on new school builds;
• Effectively using space by supporting school boards in working together to operate schools in joint-use facilities between two or more boards within the same building, where appropriate, or as shared-use sites where a school is part of a larger building with multiple users, such as a school within a mixed-use condominium; and
• Identifying and disposing of unused surplus school board property at fair market value, first considering local school board pupil accommodation needs and then provincial priorities such as long-term care and affordable housing before being sold by school boards on the open market. School boards will continue to reinvest proceeds of disposition back into their school facilities.

School boards can submit detailed project proposals to the ministry through the Capital Priorities Program (CPP) to address their current or anticipated accommodation needs for funding consideration. This program provides funding for capital projects to address accommodation pressures, facility condition, access to French-language schools and create new child care spaces in schools.