The open field on the southwest corner of Wellington and Spadina has been named as the unofficial location of the new amalgamated school on South Hill.

Prairie South and Holy Trinity Catholic school divisions are currently in negotiations with the city to acquire the piece of land at the end of Wellington Dr. just past Spadina Dr. Director of Education with Prairie South, Tony Baldwin, explains the process.

"Exactly where it will be there [on Westheath] we have no idea. We're only just starting our process of negotiations to acquire the land and sort out how exactly the residential development that they have planned there can accommodate a school."

For some families on the east side of South Hill, this announcement could mean longer bus rides or a change in their children's walking route. Baldwin says that transportation is of course part of the things they need to plan for in the choosing of a location but that there are other factors that come into play as well.

"One of the concerns that we had with all of the viable sites was that they were all a long ways west. We know that that is one of the consequences of the 4-in-1 amalgamation. In terms of student location, most of the kids who go to the four schools on South Hill live in that neighbourhood. There are far fewer kids on the east side of South Hill than on the west side."

There are also many other parts of the process that need to be taken care of first.

"We have to negotiate with the city, and then we need to do some design and figure out how it's going to fit in the neighbourhood. So we just need to take it one step at a time. We will certainly get to the place where we're thinking about transportation routes but we've got some other stuff to attend to before we get to that step."

It will, of course, be several years still before the school is opened so there is plenty of time for planning and Baldwin expects the transition to be smooth.