An overcapacity school in northeast Edmonton is considering transferring at least one grade to another school to make more room.
Christ the King Catholic Elementary/Junior High first opened in 2017 and was designed for 949 students.
As of September 2023, 1,221 students were enrolled, meaning the school was 272 students over capacity.
If nothing is done, the Edmonton Catholic School Division (ECSD) expects enrolment to balloon to 1,450 students by 2026, 501 more than the school is designed for.
Christ the King is currently using its learning commons, elementary music room, food lab, and construction prep room as classrooms amid the overcrowding issue.
“It is bursting at the seams,” John Fiacco, ECSD’s superintendent of educational planning, said in a statement.
“This has had a significant impact on the students and staff. We desperately need a new Catholic K-9 School in northeast Edmonton.”
Parents at the school were given three solutions the school division is considering during a meeting last week:
1. Grade 9 students will go to St. Cecilia School
2. Kindergarten students go to Anne Fitzgerald School
3. Grade 9 students will go to St. Cecilia and Kindergarten students will go to Anne Fitzgerald
“Us, as parents, are quite shocked at some of the options we are being given,” said Lance Colak.
“That feels awful to have my child potentially have to go to another school on top of what he’s been going through now. They are making room wherever they can, and it’s not a good situation.”
ECSD stresses no decision has been made yet.
The district told Global News transferring grades would be a temporary solution, with the only long-term solution being another new school in the area.
“In 2019, our Board of Trustees recognized that the need for a new school in that area was of utmost importance, and it was placed in a position of priority in our Capital Plan, which we submitted to the Alberta government. We knew that space would be needed to accommodate the growing neighbourhoods in this community,” ECSD Board Chair Sandra Palazzo said in a statement.
ECSD received pre-planning funding for a new K-9 Catholic school in Crystallina Nera East in the 2023 Alberta Budget.
Alberta NDP Education Critic Rakhi Pancholi believes action should have been taken years ago, as schools take years to build.
She notes overcrowding in schools isn’t unique to the ECSD, but a province-wide problem.
“Schools in growing communities like in Edmonton, in Calgary, in Airdrie, Sherwood Park, they are bursting at the seams,” said Pancholi.
In a statement, Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides says building new schools is a top priority for the government.
“Over the last four years, we have approved 98 school projects across Alberta and in Budget 2023 alone, $372 million was allocated to 33 school projects that create more than 9,400 spaces,” said Nicolaides in an email.
He added the new school in Crystallina Nera East will help Christ the King once it is open.
For parents like Colak, dealing with the impacts of overcrowding right now, it’s not much comfort.
“We’re all told we have options in education — that’s what they want to push — but our option was to go to this school, to put our kids in this school, and that could be completely uplifted,” he said.