With a new school secured for Sylvan Lake the Chinook's Edge School Division is turning its attention to the needs of Carstairs-area students.
But it will be patient.
“Alberta Infrastructure only has so many resources so we just have to be patient,” said Kurt Sacher, the division's superintendent of schools. “We are confident that once it is pretty clear that we are running out of spaces I think they will be there to provide the support that we need.”
New schools for both communities have been on the capital request list of the division for a number of years. On Feb. 12 Jeff Johnson, provincial education minister, announced a new 500-student kindergarten to Grade 8 school will be built in the south-side area of Beacon Hill In Sylvan Lake, which is home to five Chinook's Edge schools: C.P. Blakely Elementary, École Steffie Woima Elementary, École Fox Run Middle, École H.J. Cody High and Sylvan Lake Career High.
The province has said it's hoped the doors for the new Sylvan Lake school will be open by the fall of 2016.
“Our board has indicated the great need for this new school at every opportunity, and we are very pleased with (the) announcement,” said Colleen Butler, chair of Chinook's Edge board of education. “This new school will ease the enrolment pressures across all Chinook's Edge schools in Sylvan Lake and provide opportunities for even more of the exceptional programming that this community is known for.”
Sacher noted Sylvan's needs were a priority as the community's statistics show an annual growth rate of about eight per cent, compared to five per cent for Carstairs.
“You have a little different trajectory occurring in Sylvan Lake where the urgency was certainly there, but Carstairs is definitely on the radar and it is a big part of the capital priorities for the board to look at a new school in that community,” he said.
“We are optimistic we will be looked after in a timely fashion. In Sylvan Lake they came through when we needed them to, and Penhold came through when we needed them to, so we are hoping they will do the same thing in Carstairs. We are definitely getting close.”
In the meantime, Sacher said school officials will utilize unused space at Hugh Sutherland School. He added the numbers of new students coming in at Carstairs Elementary School are being monitored very closely.
He said this year new kindergarten students numbered in the 90s. If those numbers remain constant next September, which is what the board is forecasting, board officials will be confident the community will be in a “good place for the near future” in terms of required facilities, said Sacher.
“But if those numbers are out of whack and we are seeing numbers around 120 coming in we are going to need to move fairly swiftly as far as making plans to address that,” he said. “We have talked to the community about it. It is certainly a top priority for the board in its capital plan that goes to Alberta Infrastructure. They watch it with us.”
Sacher said division officials are also monitoring the situation in Penhold closely, despite the opening of Penhold Crossing Secondary School this coming fall.
“If we hadn't had that in a timely fashion that would have been a very problematic situation,” he said. “Having a new school right next to the multiplex is exciting, and that will handle the bulk of the growth but we are seeing a lot of new young families come in and that is putting pressure on Jessie Duncan Elementary School and Penhold School as we await the opening of the new school.”
