Budget must fund new schools, board chair says

Public schools ‘ behind the eight ball’ on construction, modernizing facilities

Edmonton’s public school board chairwoman trusts that badly needed new public school buildings will be announced in next week’s provincial budget.

“We’re behind the eight ball. We have to catch up,” chairwoman Michelle Draper said after a board meeting Tuesday.

Edmonton Public Schools superintendent Darrel Robertson told the board the district expects to grow by 3,000 students by next fall, which would bring total enrolment to around 98,000 pupils.

“We desperately need more schools,” Robertson said.

In the 2016-17 budget, the government announced it would spend $500 million on new school construction between 2017 and 2021, pledging to shell out $125 million in each of those four years.

However, building a new school is pricey, and school districts’ wish lists are lengthy. Last April, Edmonton public published a list of 27 projects — new school construction, major modernizations and replacements — the district wants to see done within three years. The plan pegs the cost of each new K-9 school at $28 million, and each new large high school at $86 million.

Last June, an external consultant’s report found the district will need 30 new schools in the next 15 years to keep up with growth. Another report to the board last month concluded Edmonton public high schools will be full by 2021, and the city will need three more large high schools by 2025.

More than half of the district’s schools are more than 50 years old, and some in older neighbourhoods are sparsely attended. On the construction wish list are replacement schools or upgrades to core area schools that would allow the district to close older buildings.

The district also has substantial competition for the promised $125-million worth of school construction spending next year. On the province’s list of “unfunded capital projects” released last year, 50 of 111 public infrastructure projects are schools — and those are just the high-priority projects.

Edmonton Catholic Schools has 21 major construction projects on its wish list for the next three years.

Edmonton public school trustee Michael Janz said boards are competing with hospitals and highways for funding.

He said the government’s process of awarding school construction dollars isn’t as transparent as he’d like. A disproportionate number of Catholic school construction projects have been funded, given higher enrolment in Alberta’s public schools, he said.

Janz put forward a motion, to be debated at the board’s March 21 meeting, asking the board to push the province to “develop a framework to ensure public schools get a fair and equitable share of schools, modernizations, portables and capital project spending.”

School boards have worried that tough financial times might prompt the province to hold back dollars for new students, but Draper said she’s not worried this time.

“That was such a huge part of the platform of which (the NDP) were voted in on. If that was announced, there would be an uproar across the province,” Draper said.

The province will unveil its budget March 16.

The plan pegs the cost of each new K-9 school at $28 million, and each new large high school at $86 million.