One of the fastest growing school divisions was disappointed to learn that no new capital projects are on the books for them.

On Friday, March 23 the Alberta government announced its plan to allocate $393 million for twenty new projects, which are expected to be complete for the 2022-23 school year with not one benefitting the Rocky View School jurisdiction.

Todd Brand, Rocky View School Board Chair, shares the board was hoping to see approval of at least two or three capitals projects on the funded list. "Those projects were Langdon junior/ senior high school, Chestermere K to 9 and an Airdrie K to 9. We would have loved to have gotten down even further to our fourth priority which would have been our Cochrane K to 5 school, likely for the Heartland area. While we knew going probably four deep on the capital plan would probably be too much to expect we were hoping for at least two or three announcements based on the growth we have happening right now."

With the division welcoming around 1000 new students each and every year, this news is not good. "Unless they make some off scheduled announcement it is another year until announcements are made. So let's say we get one or two schools announced next year which we would greatly want to have, those schools would be about three years from opening from that announcement date. So Rocky View is only going to open one school in the next four years and that is simply not going to meet the growth. During that time we will expect to grow by 4000 students, so opening one school that will accommodate about 600 students for 4000 growth, I think those numbers are easy to see that we have some problems in the next few years."

Understanding that they are not the only jurisdiction in need, Brand, says they need to be prepared and contingency plans need to be drawn up. "One of the compounding issues is that it's been harder and harder to get modular units in. In some areas where we have the tightness of space getting modulars is one way that the space issue can be alleviated but it's also very difficult to get them allocated and they are also very expensive. In some cases, especially more acutely in the Chestermere area, even modulars are not a great solution because some of the schools are already getting very full. You can only add so many modulars before your core capacity gets into trouble, you just can't keep adding to the school site indefinitely without you getting to where you can't properly function."

The deficit of school sites was already a challenge for RVS and now with the lack of announcements, the problem will only become more exasperated. Adding to their concern is the upcoming 2019 election which could also impact upcoming decisions. "When you get into that final year right before the election the whole process can be out of sync. There can be a lot of delays and a lot of things that go on with that so we are concerned...with not getting any this year there is no guarantee we get any next year."

Brand would love for taxpayers to see very clearly how schools are allocated by the provincial government because even the school board cannot explain the rationale. Believing if 30 schools are needed province-wide, Brand feels it is our duty to keep up. "You have to make sure there is a place for every student to have a proper location to attend their classes. We are left with issues that we are not capable of financially solving on our own. We can only do the capital planning, we can only express our need in the strongest words we can but we are reliant on the provincial government providing us with school sites that we need."

While the budget did not bring any capital projects our way, Brand and the board are appreciative the provincial government continues to hold education in high value and applauded the fact that no cuts were made to the education budget.