Rocky View Schools (RVS) will be requesting 32 new modular classrooms from the Government of Alberta as a stop-gap measure to meet its growth needs – but there is no guarantee the public school district will be getting them.
The RVS Board of Trustees unanimously approved a motion to request the 32 modulars during their Nov. 3 meeting.
“Modular classrooms are intended to be a mechanism to deal with emerging growth in communities,” stated RVS Superintendent of Schools Greg Luterbach, “and we have plenty of that all across Rocky View Schools.”
Colette Winter, director of operations for RVS, felt the 32 portable classrooms being requested were the minimal amount necessary to offset massive jumps in school population at nine of the division’s schools expected over the next three years in the urban centres of Airdrie, Chestermere, and Cochrane.
According to Winter’s report to the trustees, if all the modulars are approved for funding, that would allow those schools with the most acute need to drop to something like 100 per cent capacity over the next three years. She stressed that would not be a permanent solution to the problem of overcrowding, but a stop-gap measure.
Schools with the most acute need, according to Winter’s report, include Chestermere Lake Middle School, which is currently at 110 per cent capacity and is projected to rise to 118 per cent capacity by 2024 if four new modular units aren’t provided. W.H. Croxford in Airdrie is currently at 109 per cent capacity and is projected to rise to 133 per cent capacity by 2024 if 10 new modulars aren’t provided. Northcott Prairie in Airdrie is currently at 103 per cent capacity and is projected to rise to 119 per cent capacity by 2024, if two new modulars and a washroom unit aren’t provided.
At No. 6 and No. 9 respectively on the priority list, George McDougall High School in Airdrie and Chestermere High School would need four new modular units each.
But, as Ward 3 (Airdrie) Trustee Todd Brand reminded his fellow trustees before putting forth the motion to make the request of the Alberta government, there is no guarantee the province will actually fund them. The division’s similar request to the province in 2021 went unheeded, with no new modulars being provided to RVS in those years.
“It’s very obvious in looking at this that these (32 modular classrooms) are all high-need requests,” he stated. “I am hopeful, especially after the absence of additional modulars last year, that we will see a significant increase in that this year for government approval.”
Luterbach later told trustees that RVS, after putting in its request for new modular classrooms, would likely have to wait until next February before getting any word from the province about whether or not that request will be granted in whole or in part.
“The fact of the matter is, we don’t know how many modulars the government is going to build and have ready for next September, and we don’t know what we are competing with in terms of what other school divisions are out there asking for,” said RVS board chair and Ward 4 trustee Norma Lang. “I am just pleading that everybody to keep your fingers and toes crossed for the next four months so hopefully we will get an announcement that we are getting the 32 modulars we are asking for, and that we need.”
