School board announces West Niagara high school will open September

Niagara | Lincoln | Community | Education |

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Published March 29, 2023 at 3:41 pm

After countless delays, the District School Board of Niagara (DSBN) finally announced today (March 29) that the West Niagara Secondary School will open its doors this September.

On their social media, the DSBN posted, “We know it’s been a long wait… BUT we are THRILLED to announce that the brand new, absolutely beautiful (West Niagara) school building will officially be opening its doors for everyone this September! We can’t wait for the Wolfpack to finally be in their new home.”

While the pandemic continued to adversely affect the construction, the school board initially said it was anticipating a September 2022 opening.

Then in March 2022, they announced yet again, continued delays on the construction of the new West Niagara Secondary School have meant that students in Grimsby Secondary School and Beamsville District Secondary School will stay put for another school year.

“Our goal has always been to open the doors of what we know will be an exceptional, beautiful new school, in September 2022,” said Warren Hoshizaki, DSBN Director of Education in a release to parents, last March.

“However, due to the impacts of the global pandemic, and the issues and delays it caused, the West Niagara Secondary School building will not be ready to open by September 2022. When we have a clearer projection of when the building will be completed, we will share an update.”

The school’s actual Twitter handle is @westniagara2022 (see below) to indicate how certain they felt the 2022 opening was. In fact, Lincoln Town Council was poised in 2021 to purchase Beamsville District Secondary School outright for town use as soon as the students were out. Obviously, that idea remains on hold.

For the 2022-23 school year, the DSBN decided that students in the existing Grimsby and Beamsville high schools will be enrolling as West Niagara Secondary School students back in September, despite the fact they physically never left their schools.

DSBN Communications Officer Carolyn LoConte told inniagararegion that “while the new school building has not yet opened its doors, West Niagara Secondary School is actually open. The school opened in September 2022, with students being officially enrolled as the West Niagara Wolfpack in September 2022. While the school building isn’t ready yet, the school itself is open.”

The new high school has been riddled with controversy since the day it was first suggested. Back in March 2017, area parents were livid when the DSBN voted in favour of a motion to close three high schools in order to create the new West Niagara Secondary School.

As well as the Grimsby and Beamsville high school, which are still pending closure, the DSBN already shut down the South Lincoln High School.

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