Ten new schools and major upgrades to a dozen more are being proposed by the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) as part of its 2019-2022 capital plan. If approved by trustees later this month, the plan will be submitted to the province of Alberta for consideration as part of its future budgeting processes.
“They will then conduct some evaluations of the sites we’ve submitted … and then a year later they will announce what schools they’re approving and modernizations they’re approving–almost 12 months to the day later,” said Dany Breton, superintendent of facilities for the CBE.
Among the new schools being proposed are elementary schools in newer communities such as Auburn Bay, Evanston and Sage Hill.
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The plan also includes a proposal for a new $59-million high school in north Calgary. Located on a 23.6-acre site in Coventry Hills, the new school would accommodate 1,800 students.
The area is currently served by one high school – John G. Diefenbaker. The board said that if all high school students living in the area attended Diefenbaker, it’s usage would be at 274 per cent.
“We know, based on our records, there are 1,811 students who are currently in CBE high schools from those communities.
“We know if we were to open a school at that location that we have in the north … it would be filled immediately upon day one.”
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Diefenbaker is among a dozen schools slated for major modernizations in 2019 as part of the capital plan. Among the $27 million in renovations being proposed is a partial upgrade of the building envelope, a conversion of the library to a learning commons, a modernization of career and technology study spaces, building code upgrades and the removal of currently undisturbed hazardous materials from the building.
“While we’re opening up walls and changing things around, that’s the ideal time to be investing in significant maintenance on the facility, so we’re not opening up the building twice,” Breton said.
The proposed plan still needs to be approved by CBE trustees. That vote is set to happen later in March.