Rocky View Schools has decided to self-fund a replacement school in Westbrook instead of waiting for provincial funding, which prioritizes new schools.
By 2020, students of the community school, north of Cochrane off Highway 22, will have a modernized building. The new space will provide 1,600 square metres of space while the 1953 building will be demolished.
The school is one of a handful in the district, including Indus, Elbow Valley and George McDougall, which RVS has scratched off its capital plan list to expedite the process of much-needed renovations and replacements of the district’s ageing schools.
“We have all these new schools that we need, but on the other side of the spectrum, we have these older schools, built in the ‘50s, that we’ve been maintaining, but they’re expensive to maintain. And we just know that they need to be renovated, modernized and in the case of Westbrook, to be knocked down completely and rebuilt,” said Colette Winter, director of planning.
Winter explained that because RVS is continually building new schools – growth in the Cochrane area alone equates to one new school every two to three years – renovations and replacement projects keep getting bumped further down the list for provincial approval, such as the case for Westbrook.
“Rocky View Schools is in a position where we’re growing at such a rate that we have over 1,000 (new) students a year,” Winter said.
“Rather than staying on this list for provincial approval, which would be a very long time …We just said, ‘let’s take them off the list and let’s deal with it. And lets fund it differently,’” Winter said.
The new Westbrook building, which is estimated to cost $6 million, will be funded through RVS cash-in-lieu reserve.
The new facility is set to include a gymnasium, change rooms, washrooms, ancillary spaces, break-out spaces and learning commons for its kindergarten to Grade 8 students.
Classroom spaces will primarily be provided by portables – mostly all within RVS’s inventory – attached to the building’s core.
Presently, the school has close to 180 students and seven classrooms.
During construction of the new building, Westbrook School will remain open.
“Students will simply go from the old school to the new school once it’s open,” Winter said.
RVS said currently there are no plans to increase teaching staff or capacity, which will be 200 student seats.
“The school is for the students and the community of Westbrook. What we do plan on doing with the school is seeing it as not just a school but as a community hub. Within the community, we see there’s always a need for community events after school hours,” Winter said.
Members of the Westbrook Community Church voiced their enthusiasm for a new school building.
“The school is very much part of the community. We’ve had good relationships with them,” said Norm Zimmerman, administrative pastor.
The church, in the past, has held a few events at the school including a well-attended seminar.
Zimmerman said, policy allowing, there’s potential to host musical events, meals and other community uses.
“A new building, if it were made available to the public – which I think it could easily be – would be great, it would be awesome,” he said.
Construction is set to begin July 2018 and be complete by December 2019. The building is projected to be ready for students and staff to move in by January 2020.
RVS will be funding Indus, Elbow Valley and George McDougall with funds from the jurisdiction – $6 million per year – through the province’ Infrastructure Maintenance and Renewal grant over the course of 2017/18 and 2018/19 school years, with $3 million carried over from the 2016/17 year.
