CALGARY- Families around the city are eagerly anticipating an announcement from the province, about which communities have been picked to get new schools.
The education minister will release the list on Wednesday, after the Alberta government provided funding to build new schools for the first time in five years.
Currently, many children in new communities have to put up with long bus rides to get to class.
“When the minister called me he said ‘schools,’ so definitely more than one is what I’m hearing,” says Pat Cochrane, chair of the Calgary Board of Education. “We need several for sure to start keeping up with the pace of growth.”
A CBE plan ranks a middle school for the community of Saddle Ridge as its top priority, followed by K-4’s in Copperfield, Evanston and New Brighton.
The Catholic board wants a K-9 built in Auburn Bay, near the new South Hospital.
“I could even stand on my deck and watch them walk to school, so it would be wonderful,” says parent Coralie Remus, who lives in Auburn Bay. “I know some families with older kids in junior high and high school, who are taking two buses to get to school.”
The board also wants a K-9 in Evanston and K-6 schools built in Aspen Woods and Cranston, to cope with an expected three per cent growth in enrollment next year.
Both school divisions say they don’t know how many schools will get built, or how much public-private partnership funding will be involved.
Comments