North St. Albert has a fever and the only prescription is more space for more schools.
St. Albert Public Schools trustee and board vice-chair Kristi Rouse told city councillors Nov. 5 that growth is happening in the northeast whether there’s a new area structure plan for the region in place in 2025 as is the current timeline, or not.
Enrolment is growing even faster than St. Albert’s population.
Rouse said the board serves 9,800 students and is growing at three per cent a year. Enrolment has increased about 50 per cent faster than the city’s population since 2018, and is up 41 per cent since 2012. Housing starts since 2018 are split almost evenly between areas north of Villeneuve Road and the rest of St. Albert combined.
Rouse said the building of Lois E. Hole Elementary School in 2017 and Joseph M. Demko Secondary in 2019 ended a 25-year drought in new school construction. Both in the north, those schools are now bursting at the seams, or will be soon: Lois E. Hole is at 113 per cent utilization, Demko is at 76 per cent of its 870-student capacity and is the fastest growing school in the system.
Rouse pointed out that a school receives the maximum provincial operating and maintenance funding at 85 per cent capacity, implying that enrolment above that number puts pressure on the board.
"A school feels pretty darn full at 85 per cent."
The growth is not limited to the north: none of the four public schools in the city’s west are below 89 per cent of capacity.
She highlighted the recently announced $8.6 billion provincial accelerator fund designed to get walls around students in fast-growing corners of Alberta.
“We need to act now to capitalize on this amazing opportunity,” she said, asking for council to show the same “courage” in the north that they did when they approved the $62-million servicing of the industrial Lakeview Business District in the city’s southwest.
Building her case incrementally, she said Morinville-St. Albert MLA Dale Nally has offered his support for the proposed Erin Ridge North site, a lot developer Landrex offered as a potential home for a high school following annexation, and that Mayor Cathy Heron and Sturgeon County Mayor Alanna Hnatiw wrote to the province in 2020 with support for same.
Heron pointed out, however, that even if the NEASP makes its way past the EMRB, second and third readings and into law, the Landrex school site wouldn’t be ready for shovels for three years, the soonest sewer service can be extended north.
“I don’t want to lose provincial dollars for a school.”
Rouse responded that when the board receives build funding from the Ministry of Education, they are able to apply it to their project of greatest need per their capital plan.
“We need schools … both in the west and in the north,” she said. “When you look at the city’s map of where existing school sites are as well as the ones that are available, whether they are shovel ready or not, we need all of them.
“If this doesn’t go ahead, we’ll have to pivot … (but Erin Ridge) is still the best solution.”
Rouse received half her wish from council when they voted the northeast Area Structure Plan through first reading and a vet by the Edmonton Metropolitan Regional Board. She also asked that the city prioritize the servicing of the Landrex school site in Erin Ridge North, which council didn’t weigh in on.
