Residents have no right to spurn French school

It’s not often that Calgary communities kick up a fuss when they’re selected for a new school. In a growing city that always seems short of classroom space, the opposite is usually the case — residents grumbling when their little corner of Calgary is overlooked for new amenities.

The northwest community of Scenic Acres is turning common practice on its head, insisting that a francophone school that was announced in February should not be built on a site dedicated for just such a purpose.

There’s no way of knowing if a majority of residents oppose the proposal to educate 400 youngsters at the new school, but the area’s MLA, Sandra Jensen, thinks she has a good bead on public sentiment.

“I have not received in my office one phone call from one constituent who has asked me to advocate keeping that as a school site,” Jansen told the Herald recently.

The problem, of course, is that the land was set aside for a school, not for parkland. The site was turned over to the francophone school board in 2011 after the Calgary Board of Education decided that it was surplus to its needs.

“The actual school site was planned well over 30 years ago,” said Scott Lockwood, manager of the north planning area for the City of Calgary. “All that changed was that these students would be from a francophone board rather than the Calgary Board of Education.”

Anne-Marie Boucher, chairwoman for the Conseil scolaire Franco Sud, says the francophone board has repeatedly looked at a number of sites and has concluded Scenic Acres is the most suitable.

“Some of the sites were not in the right place ... were too far into neighbourhoods and making transportation more complicated,” Boucher said.

So it would seem that Scenic Acres residents who insist that it’s simply a matter of finding a new and more suitable location for the francophone school are mistaken. The board has duly considered other sites and found them wanting.

The Scenic Acres residents who oppose the school may have grown fond of using the school site for their recreation, but the project doesn’t imperil the baseball, basketball and tennis facilities that have been put in place.

“The design of the school will occupy 19 per cent of the total space of the park,” Boucher said. “The only recreational areas that will be affected are two temporary soccer fields.”

Much is being made of the fact that only a handful of neighbourhood students will attend the new school, but that hardly gives residents the right to a veto. In fact, the same reality would likely be the case regardless of which site was selected in the city, given that most parents send their children to public or Catholic schools. And at what point would Scenic Acres NIMBYs accept the school: when 20 per cent of students are sourced from the community, 50 per cent, 100 per cent?

Besides, many homebuyers choose a location based on its proximity to a school. It’s probable that families wanting to educate their children in the francophone school system will be drawn to Scenic Acres, creating a new pool of potential buyers and pushing up real estate values in the process.

Jansen has shamelessly pandered to Scenic Acres residents in calling for a halt to the long-waited school, but at least Education Minister Jeff Johnson has maintained the right perspective: “The only advice I’d have for anyone in Alberta is, as you’re deciding where you live ... is make sure you understand the green space in your area and what it’s zoned for.”

A partial solution might be to post a sign in communities indicating that the apparent parkland is for future school use, but there’s no guarantee that residents would read the message, especially those who buy homes a distance from the bare land, but still feel they have the right to carp when it’s tapped for its designated use.

It’s also likely that the signs would be vandalized, just as the one announcing the construction of the new Scenic Acres school has been, knocked on its side by residents apparently disgruntled by the provincial government partially living up to its commitment to provide classrooms to Alberta families with young children.