New high school expected to be overcapacity by fall
Less than a year after opening its doors to students, North Trail High School is projected to be overcapacity, with plans to overflow new students back to Crescent Heights by fall.
Families with kids expecting to attend North Trail received an email from the Calgary Board of Education early this week, just days after the new high school held a celebration with parents marking its first year, opening to kids in grades 10 and 11 last fall.
According to the letter, North Trail will be overcapacity for the 2024-25 school year, when it includes grades 10 to 12, and “will not be able to accommodate all new students who live within the designated school boundary.”
Tamara Keller, whose son attends Grade 10 now and, like all returning students, will be able to continue at the school, says many families in the community are worried whether their Grade 9 students will still be able to register.
“There's just a lot of anxiety right now. Parents are really frustrated and worried,” said Keller, a member of the Advocates for North Calgary High School, who lives in Coventry Hills.
“It seems such a pity that after so many years of hard work, there will continue to be families from our communities that will have their children attend an inner-city high school.
“The school will be so far overcapacity once it opens up to grades 10 to 12 this fall, that overflow students will be sent right back to Crescent Heights — to once again commute to an inner-city school.”
At a time when grades are so critical for students' post-secondary programs of choice, Keller says many will struggle with a commute that can take anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour each way.
Parents in several northwest communities organized fundraisers and rallies to lobby for North Trail's construction for more than a decade.
Last fall's opening of the stateof-the-art, $70.5-million facility was touted to add 1,800 students, with many able to walk from communities such as Coventry Hills, Country Hills and Panorama Hills.
But Keller says the school already has 1,300 students, with another 600 expected to arrive this fall when the school adds another grade.
“Continuous registrations” throughout the current school year “have been at a rate higher than anticipated for communities designated to the school,” the CBE letter states.
As a result, “changes must be put in place to ensure the learning environment is not adversely impacted and to manage enrolment at North Trail High School.”
CBE said Grade 9 students who registered before April 29 will be able to attend North Trail, including students from eight different feeder schools, if they are within the designated North Trail boundary.
But any new registrations that cannot be accommodated will be overflowed to Crescent Heights and placed on a “callback list,” invited to North Trail only if space becomes available.
“When a new school opens in an already developed and growing area, we expect the school to be filled up quickly,” CBE spokeswoman Kara Layher said Tuesday.
“This was seen when we opened our two recent high schools, Joane Cardinal Schubert High School and Nelson Mandela High School.”
North Trail is now among 34 CBE schools that are overcapacity, sending students to various overflow schools outside of their communities and designated boundary.
As record numbers of newcomers arrive in Alberta — from other provinces and from war-torn regions such as Ukraine and the Middle East — CBE is facing an unprecedented enrolment surge that's expected to continue in the coming years.
After welcoming more than 7,000 new kids in 2023-24, bringing total enrolment to a record 138,244, CBE is projecting a total of 146,294 students in 2024-25, meaning an additional 8,050 kids.
And in 2025-26, the CBE is projecting 153,193 total students, an additional 6,899 kids, reaching yet another all-time high.
Overall, in the next two years the CBE is expecting to add another 14,800 students, higher than the 13,000 received in the previous two record-setting years.
Still, in the UCP'S Budget 2024 announced this spring, the CBE was granted full construction funding for only one new school, a new K-4 school in Evanston, among 12 other full construction approvals across Alberta.
UCP officials have insisted new schools are being built as fast as possible, with $2.1 billion invested over the next three years to build 43 schools across the province, including 11 in Calgary.