Some Rocky View Schools (RVS) trustees are calling the province’s commitment to deliver only 10 new modular classrooms to the public school division this year “shameful” and “a joke.”
During the RVS Board of Trustees meeting on April 4, trustees were informed by RVS staff that the province had confirmed it would be delivering only about one-third of the modulars requested by the school division earlier this school year after providing no new construction funding for local public school builds in its recent 2023 capital budget.
“We requested 750 spaces,” said Ward 3 (Airdrie) Trustee Fred Burley. “Thirty units plus the two washrooms. We got 225. Growing at 1,000 students a year – this is nothing. And the schools themselves are what we need, not modulars. But the fact they didn’t even come through (on modulars), I blame the government.
“I think it is a joke what we got,” he stated.
RVS staff confirmed that only a few schools in the division got funding for new modular classrooms. W.H. Croxford High School in Airdrie will receive two new modulars. RVS had requested 10 new modulars for the school, which will be at 133 per cent capacity by 2024.
Three new modular classrooms will be provided to Chestermere Lake Middle School. RVS had requested four.
One new modular will be provided to George McDougall High School. RVS had requested four new modulars.
Two new modular classrooms will also be funded for Manachaban Middle School in Cochrane this year, and one new modular will be provided to Meadowbrook Middle School in Airdrie.
Also in Airdrie, Northcott Prairie School, which had requested two new modular classrooms and a bathroom unit, will receive one additional modular. However, the portable will not be new, as the province will pay to transfer an existing modular from Indus School to Northcott.
The province will also pay to move one existing modular at Herons Crossing School to a different location on site to improve bathroom accessibility.
While Trustee Burley felt the provincial government’s delivery of only 10 new modulars to RVS was “a joke,” Ward 5 Trustee (Springbank-Bragg Creek) Judi Hunter was more conciliatory in her tone.
“I just think when we had our meeting with Minister LaGrange, and she indicated the difficulty the province is having across the board with school requests and modular requests,” Hunter explained. “And then you look at this school division saying, ‘We are growing. We have no space.’ This is not just Rocky View. We might be at the top of the list for that, but we are not alone.”
While still saying she feels several provincial governments, including the current one, have “dropped the ball” on new school builds, Hunter was thankful some new modulars, at least, were delivered to RVS this year.
“I am glad we did receive modulars even though we heard modulars are hard to come by,” she said.
Ward 3 (Airdrie) Trustee Todd Brand was not feeling so conciliatory.
“If we didn’t get (any new school construction funding), then we, at least, should have gotten a full slate of (32) modulars,” he concluded. “The fact that there is some sort of backlog of modulars, that’s on the government to solve that and make sure that gets rectified … The message is: You are not meeting the space needs of Rocky View students. Yes, it is happening elsewhere in the province, but that is even more shameful on the government.”
Fellow Ward 3 (Airdrie) Trustee Melyssa Bowen said she didn’t know how she was going to face families at W.H. Croxford High after hearing the province had only provided two new modulars out of the 10 requested.
“There is nothing that is going to be done; there is no more shuffling to be moving these students around … We are really in trouble here,” she said.
RVS Superintendent of Schools Greg Luterbach did say his staff was working with the Ministry of Education to see if there might be more flexibility in how the incoming modulars are distributed when they arrive, and informed trustees there still could be future changes to the modular distribution list.
