Rocky View Schools (RVS) trustees are calling the more than 100 per cent utilization at East Lake School in Chestermere and Herons Crossing School in Airdrie “a crisis” and on Oct. 2 the board of trustees approved an emergent capital request to be sent to the Government of Alberta.
Trustee Bev LePeare, who made the motion to approve the request, said the title of the request should be “crisis request” to more accurately represent the situation RVS finds itself in with the rapid student population growth in the division.
“This is just the beginning,” LePeare said. “This part will help us house these students for a short time and then we will have to build more schools.”
RVS is asking for about $25 million to relocate two modular classrooms in Airdrie, build an addition to Herons Crossing also in Airdrie and to attach 16 new modular classrooms (portables) to Chestermere’s East Lake School.
East Lake School, which just opened this September, is operating at 112 per cent utilization, according to RVS, and if nothing is done now the school will be at 134 per cent utilization next year.
“Parents have the right to be ticked, I’m ticked,” said Chestermere-Rocky View MLA Bruce McAllister, who’s daughter attends East Lake.
He said the process to get more portables to schools is “overcomplicated” and “unacceptable.”
“The reason we’re in this mess is because of poor planning on behalf of the provincial government,” he said.
Associate Superintendent of Business and Operations Darrell Couture said RVS knew the school needed more classrooms last year and had applied for four portables last year.
However, the request was denied by the government.
“This is the reason why we have 112 per cent (utilization),” he told the Board.
Initially RVS was only going to request eight portables in the emergent request but because the school is a P3 school the process to add to the school is more complex and so the government recommended the division request 16 portables in the emergent request.
P3 schools are a public-private partnership in which the government owns the infrastructure assets, while the private sector plays a larger role in design, construction, operation and maintenance.
“We need to add four more classrooms per year (to keep up with growth),” Couture said of East Lake.
According to Sept. 8 enrollment numbers, RVS has an additional 1,100 students this year.
Final enrollment numbers will not be available until the next RVS board of trustees meeting on Oct. 16.
“We are almost double the Calgary growth,” Couture said.
On Sept. 22 the provincial government announced it will invest $30.6 million in Calgary school infrastructure to build four Calgary Board of Education starter schools.
Following this announcement, the government requested RVS identify similar capital needs.
“Because it is an emergent request we are hoping for a fairly rapid response,” Superintendent of Schools Don Hoium said, adding he is unsure of the time frame for when RVS can expect a response. Couture said, if approved the portables should be in place by January 2015.
