Emanuel’s grand $7.5m plan
EMANUEL School is trying to raise $7.5 million to build a multi-purpose building that will include a visual arts precinct, a 220-seat amphitheatre, a wellness centre and eight new classrooms.
The new building will allow the school to accommodate students when the demountable classrooms, which are currently on one of the basketball courts and were built in 2001, are demolished.
“It’s time to take the students out of the demountables,” Emanuel School president Grant McCorquodale told The AJN this week.
He said that the number of students at the school has grown 24 per cent in the last six years and Emanuel has only been been able to accommodate the students in demountables, but that can not continue.
“This new building includes improved visual arts facilities and a purpose-built leadership and learning centre to develop tomorrow’s leaders. They are critical expansions for the school.”
He said the Capital Appeal, which the school was awarded by the JCA, and the project, could be a turning point in Emanuel’s history.
“We believe that with the community’s support we will be able to raise the $7.5 million required.
“The goodwill we are already receiving is indicating that a lot of people care about Emanuel School but this needs to be a community project, not just from the parent-body alone.”
Emanuel School principal Anne Hastings said the new building will provide students and staff with exceptional learning and performing spaces.
“The planning for the Capital Appeal has been a mammoth task,” Hastings said.
“So many people have been involved in its every stage and I thank them for their dedication and enthusiasm. I look forward to the day, in the not too distant future, when we begin to dig the foundations, writing a new chapter in the School’s history.”
Emanuel School opened in 1983 with only 53 students but now has more than 750 students.
Since it’s last JCA Capital Appeal in 2005, the school’s student body has grown by 24 per cent, it has retired nearly $6 million of debt and is debt free, moved from annual operating losses to surpluses, built the Kleinlehrer Family Science Building, reduced its share of annual support from the JCA and substantially upgraded the campus.
While JCA funds operating costs it does not fund any capital expense therefor each year a JCA constituent is awarded a Capital Appeal to try and raise money for a specific capital need.
JOSHUA LEVI
This artists impression of level 1 of the new building shows new recreational space and classrooms.
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