Planning and Facilities

Planning and Facilities Department

The Planning and Facilities Department contributes to student and staff success and the quality of Catholic education in its stewardship of the Board’s facilities.

This department effectively provides enrollment projections, school planning strategies, new school site acquisitions, school boundary maps, new school design and construction, school renovations and additions, all aspects of facility maintenance, operations and renewal services as well as Community Use of Schools. Our dedicated team strives for excellence in the stewardship of resources and in all facets of the services provided to ensure a clean, safe and healthy environment for students, staff and school communities.

The OCSB family is growing

We received $25 million to fund two new Catholic Elementary Schools. The new schools will serve the growing communities of Fernbank (Kanata/Stittsville) and Barrhaven South.

This funding represents over a thousand new pupil spaces and will provide for close to eighty more licenced childcare spots between the two new schools. The new school in Fernbank will allow us to address population growth in the Stittsville-Kanata area of the city. This new Catholic Elementary School will be built on a site located at the southwest corner of Defense Street and Cope Drive.

The new Barrhaven South Catholic Elementary School will be located in South Nepean in the northern portion of the Half Moon Bay Community, at a site to be purchased.

The two new schools are scheduled to open in September 2023.

Capital Plan – Building Schools for our Students

It has been an OCSB practice to produce a comprehensive multi-year Capital Plan every five years that provides long-term enrolment and capital planning projections and identifies general timelines for new schools, additions, portable structures, accommodation review processes and decisions. The document provides school-by-school enrolment projections and analysis of all planning areas within the Board.  The objective of the Plan is to maintain throughout the Board’s jurisdiction sufficient schools in appropriate locations to serve the current and future educational facility requirements of our student population. Typically the Plan focuses on the first five years as a basis for prioritizing requests for Ministry funding.

Energy conservation and management in our facilities

We have a highly successful Energy Management Plan in place, helping us reduce energy use and save money. In fact, we were named the top performing school board in Ontario for three consecutive years! Our efforts to reduce energy use have saved $31,548,388 in avoided costs to date.

Keeping our schools safe and clean

The Maintenance and Operations division of the Planning and Facilities Department provides a full complement of quality maintenance, operational and custodial functions. Over 92 facilities totaling over 5.5 million square feet of educational space are served. That’s over 550 acres of space!

Green Certified cleaning products are used in our schools and Board facilities, changing our school culture and reducing our carbon footprint. These products that work to sanitize students’ desks and clean hallway floors are developed using renewable resources that are non-toxic and biodegradable. They also have very low fragrance levels and are extremely mild to the skin. The OCSB introduced the cost-effective products to help promote a healthy work environment for staff and students, and address the many individual and systemic concerns related to chemical use in society.