Public board to consolidate four schools into two buildings

Four aging schools in the Britannia-Youngstown, Mayfield and Canora neighbourhoods will eventually be combined into two new buildings, the Edmonton public school board decided Tuesday.

Based on feedback from people in the communities, administrators recommended the board replace Britannia Junior High School with a new K-9 school for 700 students and replace Mayfield Elementary School with a prekindergarten to Grade 3 school for 400 students. The total cost would be $43 million.

Once the school board gets approval and funding from the provincial government for the replacement schools, which has not yet happened, Youngstown School and Brightview School in Canora will ultimately close.

“We were at a point where our administration found that we could recommend a concept that really looked at and valued what the community wanted to see,” school board chairwoman Michelle Draper told reporters after the meeting.

Once approved, the schools would take two to three years to build, and Mayfield students would have to move temporarily during construction, assistant superintendent Lorne Parker said.

Not all trustees agreed with the move.

Shelagh Dunn, who represents west Edmonton, including the affected neighbourhoods, was the sole trustee to vote against the plan’s approval.

Transit branch manager Eddie Robar said he aims to contract private security to staff stations 24-7 within the next two to four weeks. They will be stationed at 26 stations where transit has seen an assault or other serious incident within the last five years.

The branch was already planning to hire 25 new peace officers to staff the new Valley Line LRT — these will be hired three months earlier to help on the existing lines. In addition, transit wants to hire 24 general security staff, which will bring the number of inspectors and other help in line with ratios in other major transit operations.

Edmonton currently has one inspector for every 262 buses. Most other jurisdictions have one onstreet inspector for every 100 to 125 buses, according to a city report presented Tuesday.

Together, the ongoing security increase will cost roughly $9 million. Capital cost requests bring the total past $20 million.

The bus shields will come with air conditioning to ensure the drivers don’t get too hot.

The first buses retrofitted will be deployed on late night and higherrisk routes.

The plan passed unanimously at council Tuesday, but not without reservations.

“We may be throwing money at the wrong thing,” said Coun. Scott McKeen, worrying this might be like when council spent millions adding suicide barriers to the High Level Bridge. It attached itself to one expensive solution without addressing root causes.

But many other council members said this move is a long time coming. It will increase ridership, especially in the northeast where several stations are problematic, said Coun. Tony Caterina.

Most of Edmonton’s stations are concrete platforms surrounded by vast parking lots, sometimes with a small coffee shop tucked inside. Caterina asked city officials to investigate how to bring more life, perhaps by selling “air rights” to developers to redevelop homes and shops above stations.

Robar said his team is already writing new guidelines for transit stations in Edmonton. “We’re absolutely interested in making sure our transit stations are community gathering spaces,” he told council.

He said his favourite example of a well-done station is Dartmouth Bridge Terminal in Halifax, which he worked on. It’s tied in with a school, recreation centre, library and convenience store, with a park on top of the building. “It can have a huge impact,” he said. “People go to that station just to watch the fireworks over the harbour.”