With many Airdrie schools facing the crunch of overpopulated classrooms, Rocky View Schools (RVS) Board of Trustees met on Thursday, April 11 to discuss potential ways to balance Airdrie student spaces.
Last September, in response to growing student accommodation pressures across Airdrie, RVS approved the Balancing Airdrie Student Spaces engagement plan, intending to collect feedback from the community and build a “better understanding of the significant space challenges in Airdrie schools”. The plan sought to maximize existing school spaces and improve learning environments.
Multiple surveys organized by RVS communications department were done from January to March this year, and the findings from the public engagement were collected into a report that was then presented to the board.
According to the final report presented by RVS superintendent Greg Luterbach, the top three considerations that Airdrie residents wanted were for neighbourhoods and households to be kept together, the minimization of disruption, and to balance enrolments to achieve the “greatest overall improvement of utilization.”
As far as solutions go, the report outlined three suggestions that the board could take into consideration.
The first was to convert C. W. Perry school in Airdrie into a high school, which according to the report, would help capacity at other high schools and allow for smaller high school classes. The second option was to have Grade 8 students stay in their schools for Grade 9, which would align with the provincial curriculum.
The final suggestion was for a reorganization of the grade structure at all schools, which again would align Airdrie schools with the rest of the province curriculum-wise, but would have an impact on the greatest number of students, according to the report.
67 per cent of survey respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that having Grade 8 students stay in their schools for Grade 9 would be the best option for Airdrie schools. 63 per cent of respondents agreed that the reorganization of grade structures was the best solution. Only 37 per cent of respondents agreed that converting C.W. Perry was the best solution to solve the issue of student spaces.
The trustees showed their appreciation for everyone who participated in the surveys, but some added that the decision is still far from easy to make.
“I wish there was a clear cut decision,” said Ward 1 Trustee Shali Baziuk. “But I feel we can make a much more informed decision [now.”
The board will decide what solution will be best to help alleviate the issue of student spaces at their April 25 meeting.
