Starter-school plan scrapped in favour of full-fledged buildings in 6 Calgary neighbourhoods
About-face by province welcomed by Calgary Board of Education
The Calgary Board of Education is cheering the provincial government’s decision to change its plan for so-called "starter schools" in Calgary.
Instead of modular classrooms, the province will now go ahead and build what it calls six "full schools" in growing Calgary communities.
"This is fantastic news for Calgary students,” said trustee Trina Hurdman.
She said the public system is operating at nearly full capacity and building full schools recognizes the growing need in Calgary.
"We always want all of our students to have an optimal learning environment and we would like all of our students to have equitable access to facilities with a gym and a library," she said.
Four of the schools will be built in the public system — in Aspen Woods, West Springs, Saddle Ridge and Cranston —- and two in the Catholic system, in Silverado and Skyview Ranch.
Edmonton is also slated to get six new schools.
Education Minister Gordon Dirks says the public and Catholic boards in Calgary and Edmonton made compelling arguments to go big now.
"They were able to demonstrate that going to full builds would get more students in classrooms faster," he said.
"We don't anticipate there's going to be additional costs involved with the building of these, in fact even in the long run we may save more money."
Dirks says the six new schools announced for each city will be built to accommodate up to 900 students.
Calgary Liberal MLA Kent Hehr said the earlier plan for starter schools was flawed.
"It was a silly plan in the first place. If you're going to build a school, you might as well build the whole school,” he said.