A purposed Airdrie and Area Community Learning Centre Project (AACLC) peaked the interest of Airdrie City council when presented on July 15.
“I think the idea and principle behind it is something Airdrie could definitely use from a community perspective,” Mayor Peter Brown said.
Rocky View Schools Trustee (RVS) Sylvia Eggerer said AACLC will provide a broad range of resources to connect educational and community services such as health, social services, advanced education and more.
“School doesn’t necessarily start when kids are four or five and it doesn’t end when they’re 17 or 18,” Eggerer said. “It starts before and goes beyond.”
The Centre is a RVS project and the proposed facility will be connected to the new high school in Chinook Winds.
“It’s an opportunity to bring together all these services into one centre as kind of a one-stop shop,” Eggerer said.
She added providing service for children is not only about the education of the child but about the child as a whole and includes factors that could affect a child like access to food and a safe place to call home.
During the July 15 meeting, council unanimously voted to have City staff meet with the AACLC committee, which Eggerer is a member of, to determine how the City can be involved and assess financial needs of the project.
“Where we’re looking for more information is what’s this going to look like? Who’s going to operate it? Who’s going to pay for it and have it more clearly defined,” Brown said.
He added a needs assessment will be completed before moving ahead with the project and that has not been finished yet.
“We need a clearer definition of what this is,” he said.
“I was totally impressed,” Eggerer said of the reaction of council. “Each one of the councillors and the mayor spoke to the value of RVS in the community.”
She added though a meeting between the City and the AACLC committee has not yet been set, she understands the community needs to see the value in the centre before moving forward.
“It has to be something the community and area wants,” she said.
She said the idea of AACLC is working together and pooling resources to provide better service for the community.
“We believe schools are a part of the community. It is something that we as a school division have always believed in,” she added.
In the 2012-2013 budget, RVS received a grant from the provincial government, which allowed the committee to hire a project manager to help develop the Centre.
That grant, didn’t carry over to the next year, which has resulted in the RVS’ board of trustees asking for the City’s involvement in the project and financial help to keep the momentum going.
RVS has allocated $30,000 from the 2013-2014 budget and two acres of property on which to build the centre.
Eggerer said she knows $30,000 is not enough to hire a full-time project manager but it will hopefully be enough to hire contract work and keep the project moving forward.
She said the facility is probably still a ways away as RVS and the AACLC committee will have to raise several million dollars for construction, but said the City’s involvement will help the community see the value in the project.
