EDMONTON – The Edmonton Catholic School Board is talking about closing some facilities.
Catholic trustees voted Tuesday night to consider four schools for closure because they are under capacity, and costing the board $22 million in deferred maintenance costs.
The schools being considered for closure are St. Brendan, St. Gabriel, St. James and St. Kevin. All except St. Kevin are only at 30 per cent capacity.
The board said a new replacement school would be built with capacity for 750 students. It may be built on the St. Brendan School site at 58 Street and 93 A Avenue.
Parents at Tuesday’s meeting shared their thoughts.
“A big shiny new school is not appealing to us,” said Lana Brenneis.
“That’s why we picked an older neighbourhood – to have a small community school.”
“And, if the Catholic School District chooses to remove them all in the eastern segment of the city and have one token school, we’re not really certain if that’s fulfilling a mandate to provide Catholic education,” said Brenneis.
“It’s certainly not accessible. Twenty-one communities with one school? That’s really not what we consider reasonable.”
The Catholic School Board will vote to determine if any schools will close on May 20.
If it decides to shut the schools, it would still take two or three years before they would close, allowing for the replacement school to be built first.
Comments