Two Cochrane schools are among those in the Rocky View School Division (RVS) requiring modular units to accommodate an anticipated overflow of students in the 2019-20 school year.

With no funding announced to expand the Bow Valley High School (BVHS) and its student population expecting to near capacity by next fall, RVS has requested six modulars from Alberta Education. Even if the expansion was announced today it wouldn't be ready for three years and space is required now.

Four modulars have also been requested for the RancheView School, forecasted to be at 106 per cent of its capacity by next fall.

Thirty-nine modulars in all have been requested by Rocky View Schools for the 2019-20 school year. How many will be awarded is yet to be seen, but if it’s like last year it won’t be a full complement.

“We didn’t even get half of the modulars we requested last year,” says Fiona Gilbert, vice-chair and Cochrane representative on the board. “While every single one of these modulars is a need, I’m not holding out too much hope that we will get all of them.”

She does, though, hope those critically needed, like in Cochrane, are approved.

The school division expects to hear from Alberta Education by February on what they will provide. Then RVS will work on a plan 'B' for any shortcoming.

The scenarios for Bow Valley and RancheView are quite different.

RancheView was designed to accommodate 800 students and then have modulars attached or removed as dictated by the ebb and flow of the student population.

“This was planned for RancheView,” she explains. “We knew we would need these and we just hope the provincial government agrees with us and awards us these four modulars.”

The high school is number three priority in the division’s capital plan submitted to Alberta Education. Enrolment is forecasted to reach 97 per cent of its 700-student capacity next fall and be overcapacity at 111 per cent by the fall of 2020. The division wants to double its capacity to address the desperate need for the bubble of students coming from Cochrane’s middle schools. If approved, it will become Cochrane's largest high school.

RVS officials were stunned when no new schools were announced for the division in April. The last school approved for RVS was in 2017 (a K-9 in Airdrie) and with three of the fastest growing municipalities in Canada (Cochrane, Airdrie and Chestermere) that’s a huge problem. Here in Cochrane alone, they foresee the need for one new school every year or two.

“As a board, we are advocating hard, we’re meeting with municipal partners as well as provincial partners and MLAs," says Gilbert. "They know Rocky View Schools is in need of infrastructure. I’m not sure what the hold up is at the provincial level but I suspect there are needs right across the province. “

No other Cochrane school is on the priority list, not because of a lack of need but an inability to meet requirements of Alberta Education. A K-5 school proposed for the Heartland neighbourhood is in that situation.

“The developer does not have that ready for us so we have to take that off our list according to government rules and regulations. We cannot have things on our list where there’s not a site ready.”

The same situation exists elsewhere in Rocky View.

“With the exception of Bow Valley High, Langdon and Airdrie we don’t have any shovel-ready sites. We couldn’t put more on our list if we wanted because we don’t have any sites ready,” says Gilbert.

Also foresee for Cochrane is the need for a K-9 school in the River Heights area on a site in the new Rivercrest neighbourhood that has just begun development.

By the end of September, RVS saw a four per cent increase in enrolment. In four years its student population has grown by 4,129 students, over 20 per cent, and now totals 24,715, the size of a small city.

“It’s not just a Cochrane issue, it’s a surrounding Calgary issue," says Gilbert. "Everybody loves these smaller communities within driving distance of the amenities and we’re all growing leaps and bounds.”

There are 5,450 students in Cochrane/Westbrook/Bearspaw schools, 922 students more than in 2014.

Setting the priorities is a challenge. Gilbert says it’s scary to think here in Cochrane we have such a great need, yet there are even greater needs in Langdon and Airdrie.

“In my opinion, the top three really should all be the top one. If we could have three tied for first place I think those would all be there.”

She says it's early in the school year and there hasn’t been much discussion yet among parents, but it will come.

“They’ve lived through it before and hopefully they know Rocky View Schools will do the best that they can to accommodate the children."

She says getting approval for a new school isn't a very transparent process.

“You could think, ‘we’ve checked off all the boxes so we should get the schools,’ but you don’t really know.”

New schools are normally announced once a year, timed around the provincial budget.