'Kids aren't feeling safe at that school,' MLA says of new Halifax-area high school

HALIFAX -

J.L. Ilsley High School in Halifax is a brand new building, but the area's MLA says it has its problems.

"The overlying theme is that kids aren't feeling safe at that school," says Liberal MLA Brendan Maguire.

The school opened in September, but Maguire says it did so before it was finished.

"I find out the school was opened without security cameras, and with no fire alarms, and that they hired security to walk around the school to look for fires which I mean was absolutely mind-blowing," Maguire says.

But a spokesperson for the Halifax Regional Centre for Education disagrees.

A statement to CTV says: "Fire alarms were working on the first day of school and have been working every day since. The fire marshal inspected the system and issued a certificate of occupancy," says Doug Hadley.

Maguire also says incidents of violence are up at the school.

"I've had dozens of parents reach out to me, and just as many students and staff, too, to talk about ongoing violence at the school," he says.

The president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union says teachers are concerned and that the current situation at the school can be traced back to cuts in staffing by the previous government.

"For us, this is really tied back to the concerns we raised last spring about the impact of cutting unassigned instructional time -- it's a 12.5 per cent staffing cut at metro high schools -- was going to have," says Paul Wozney.

Nova Scotia's education minister says if there is an increase in bullying and violence at the school, it's not being reported.

"So, we're seeing some references to it on social media, but that is not what's actually being reported to the principal," says Education Minister Becky Druhan. "We encourage anybody, students, students who have issues or incidents to have issues or incidents to go directly to the principal."

The new J.L. Ilsley High School has close to 900 students in Grades 9 to 12.