Morinville town council will meet this week with Alberta's education minister to try and get the town's new public school back on track.
Andy Isbister, Morinville's acting chief administrative officer, confirmed by email last week that Mayor Lisa Holmes would meet with Alberta Education Minister David Eggen and representatives from the Sturgeon School Division Thursday to try and resolve problems with the town's new public school site.
Alberta Education suspended planning for Morinville's new public junior-senior high school last month due to numerous problems with its proposed location behind the Ray MacDonald Sports Centre. Unless that school gets built, hundreds of public school students may have to be bused out of town once they graduate from Morinville Public School.
Holmes said that the town sent a letter to Eggen's office last week requesting his intervention.
"We feel we need to go directly to the minister himself," she said.
"The information is not adding up."
Council fires back
The new school is meant to supplement the overcrowded Morinville Public, which (as of this fall) will have about 25 modulars attached to it. It's meant to be built on land now occupied in part by the town's hockey arena and curling club.
Alberta Education has cited numerous problems with the site, including uncertainty over when the arena and curling club will be demolished. It has said that it cannot plan the school until these uncertainties are resolved.
The Sturgeon School Division informed parents of this issue in a letter last month. Morinville Public School council chair Sarah Hall followed up with a letter criticizing town administration for not doing enough to help get the school established.
Town council rallied around its administration Feb. 9, pointing to the many meetings it had held with the school's planners and a conceptual plan they believed addressed Alberta Education's concerns.
Coun. Brennan Fitzgerald said he was "displeased" the board had sent a letter to parents "that really incited such fear and worry in the community," and questioned why the board was "so adamant" at stopping the planning process. He alleged that "there's been a little bit of giving up" when it comes to working on this site.
"I'm a little confused as to why that approach is being taken when we should be working together to solve this problem."
Hall, who was at the council meeting and is on the design team for the new school, said it was not the school board that had "given up" on this site.
"It was Alberta Education and Alberta Infrastructure's decision ultimately."
She also defended her and the board's decision to send letters to parents and the media on this issue. Town council learned about this problem on Jan. 22 and did not issue a response until 10 days later.
"They had more than enough time to go to Sturgeon School Division to get this worked out, but they did not do that until the pressure from parents was put on them, and that's the way it seems to go every time," she said.
"Without that letter and the media attention, our council would not have acted as quickly as it did."
Temporary solution?
Holmes said that while parents may have hoped the town would create a new site for this school, this was the only one the town had available.
If this site really is unsuitable, the town will ask the province to help it find an alternative. The province would have to negotiate with Sturgeon County to put the school on the new rec-centre lands (as some have suggested), as those lands were county property.
Holmes said it was unrealistic to expect the school to be ready for the 2017-2018 school year as planned at this point. She opposed the school division's backup plan to bus students out of town until the new school was built.
"We need to have Alberta Education and Sturgeon School Division step up. It's their responsibility to provide education in my community, not mine. In this situation, I'm really disappointed that there has not been a plan communicated."
Holmes said council had been in talks with Alberta Infrastructure and believed that spare portables from High River could be used to construct a temporary school on the school site for public school students.
"We feel that's an appropriate solution in order to keep kids in our community."
Hall said she hated this idea, but said it might be a necessary Band-Aid solution.
"My fear with a temporary school is that it won't (be) a temporary school – that it will be an excuse to hold off (construction) for who knows how long."
She looked forward to Eggen's intervention, however, as it would let the town hear Alberta Education's concerns first-hand.
"When it comes to big decisions like this ... the government should definitely (have) an active role."
With files from Doug Neuman.
