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Crowded Moncton K-5 school will get new building instead of
renovations

   NewOliver Pearson
   | CBC News | Posted: April 17, 2026 8:19 PM | Last Updated:
   Just now

   Education minister predicts new school will open in four years

   Image | ECOLE SAINT-HENRI

   Caption: École Saint-Henri will in a new building in about four
   years, Education Minister Claire Johnson said Friday. (Amine
   Salhi/Radio-Canada)
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   A Moncton elementary school will be replaced instead of
   upgraded to save time and money, the province announced Friday.
   Education Minister Claire Johnson said the idea to build a new
   École Saint-Henri instead of fixing up the overcrowded current
   school came up during the renovation planning stage.
   “We realized that it is an old building and that the renovation
   project was going to be too costly and too complicated,”
   Johnson said.
   Initially, $50.1 million was approved to renovate the
   kindergarten-to-Grade 5 school. That upgrade process started
   with an assessment to understand how much space the school
   needed.
   But the assessment revealed that the upgrades would require
   five to six years of work and be more expensive than building a
   new school on the same property.
     * Anglophone East superintendent pleased 2 of 9 new schools
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     * New school to replace Moncton-area middle and elementary
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   “We actually think we're going to be able to open the new
   school faster than we would have been able to do the midlife
   renovation,” said Johnson, who is the MLA for Moncton South.
   She predicted the new school, to be built for 650 students,
   will be ready in four years.
   A news release from the province said that as well as
   classrooms, the new school will have a gymnasium, multipurpose
   rooms for projects, a music room, a performing arts space and
   resource rooms.
   And putting up a new building will allow students to stay in
   their current school without worrying about renovations going
   on around them, Johnson said.
   This was a “huge factor," she said
   She said there was also a desire to keep École Saint-Henri on
   the same lot on Gross Avenue.
   Keeping it on the same lot and accommodating for future growth
   will mean the school might be taller than it is wide, Johnson
   said.
   “We are on a smaller plot of land and that we want to keep this
   school close to where people live, we know that we need to
   innovate. … Instead of sprawling out, we're leaning more
   towards building up.”

   Image | Claire Johnson Education Announcement

   Caption: Johnson said École Saint-Henri's new building in
   Moncton will have room for a growing student body. (Victoria
   Walton/CBC)
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   The current school was built in 1965 and has seen some big
   changes in recent years, principal Sophie LeBlanc said.
   Enrolment has increased almost 60 per cent since 2021, from 314
   students to 497 students as of October.
   LeBlanc said new students are enrolling every week and common
   spaces, such as the gymnasium, have become classrooms.
   “We also don't have a cafeteria anymore. We have a very small
   library in one of the portable classrooms, and so the children
   have been eating in their classrooms for two or three years
   now,” said LeBlanc, who is very excited about the new school.

   Image | Sophie LeBlanc

   Caption: Sophie LeBlanc, the principal of École Saint-Henri,
   said the current overcrowding is not ideal, but the school has
   been making things work. (Victoria Walton/CBC)
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   “I'm looking forward to having extra room because right now we
   have absolutely no room to grow,” LeBlanc said.
   LeBlanc said the school now has nine portable classrooms and
   will need another one before school starts next September.

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