Rocky View Schools (RVS) will only be receiving seven portables (also called “modular classrooms”) for the 2019/2020 school year.
RVS requested 39 portables from the Province in October of last year.
If the request had been fulfilled, RancheView School would have received four portables and six would have gone to Bow Valley High School (BVHS).
As it stands, RancheView will be the only Cochrane school to receive a portable and it will only be receiving one.
The portables are needed to deal with growing student enrolment as a majority of Cochrane schools under RVS jurisdiction are full.
“A school is deemed to be “full” once it has reached 85 per cent utilization. Once a school gets to be over 85 per cent of capacity, then schools start to lose some of the specialty type spaces like band rooms, science labs and learning commons as these specialty spaces need to become classrooms in order to accommodate the growing number of students,” said Fiona Gilbert, RVS Trustee for Ward 6.
Of the eight schools in the Cochrane area, only three are currently under 85 per cent of their capacity – Manachaban Middle School, Fireside School, and Cochrane High School.
Without portables, RancheView School was projected to be at 106 per cent capacity for the 2019/2020 school year.
The single portable they’re receiving will bring that projection down to 100 per cent.
BVHS is projected to hit 97 per cent utilization for 2019/2020 and 111 per cent utilization in 2020/2021.
RVS is currently employing a combination of short-term and medium-term strategies to cope with the rising number of students.
“Sometimes a little creativity, innovation and a shift in thinking can allow for schools to use spaces in different ways and for multiple purposes,” said Gilbert.
“For the medium term, the solution may lie in redrawing the school attendance boundaries for certain schools or changing the grade structure to direct students out of the schools that are over utilized in to the schools that are not quite as full.”
Gilbert added that RVS will likely be looking into this solution in the near future.
School attendance boundaries have been changed frequently in the past few years to accommodate for growing enrolment and the opening of Fireside School in 2017.
“There’s going to be some upset parents,” said Kari Rose, parent, Mitford School Council chair and vice-chair for the Bow Valley School Council.
The change in attendance boundaries has disproportionately affected some families.
“Every year they’ve had to change schools,” said Rose.
The only clear long-term solution to the increasing enrolment is to create more spaces for students.
These spaces would be made not only through building new schools but finishing plans for existing schools.
“We need commitment from government to fund the addition to BVHS to add 700 new student spaces,” said Gilbert.
“When BVHS was originally built, it was only half built. So, this would actually “finish” the school.”
There are sites specifically for new schools in the Cochrane area but they need to be serviced and shovel-ready before any development can begin.
Those concerned about this issue should talk to their MLAs, as well as the town developers and school boards about new schools.
“They all have to get together to make this happen,” said Rose.
Rose is concerned that education issues may be ignored in the provincial election due to economic concerns being at the forefront.
“My fear is the whole education piece is sliding under the surface,” said Rose.
“But these kids are our future economy and we have to take care of them.”
