Our page 3 story in this week's issue centres around the growing need for a Francophone high school in Airdrie.
This article wasn't the first time our newsroom has reported on advocacy work by southern Alberta's Francophone school district – Le Conseil Scolaire du Sud de l’Alberta (FrancoSud) – to bring a second Francophone school to Airdrie. But with our last article about the topic being written back in early 2020, we felt it was prudent to write a follow-up.
What's apparent is that not much has changed in the last three years; Airdrie's sole Francophone school, (École francophone d'Airdrie) is still operating at close to its enrolment capacity, and FrancoSud is still lobbying the province to approve plans for a junior/senior high school to be built in Reunion. The project has moved up to the very top of the district's priority list on its capital plan for 2023 to 2026.
Complicating matters, according to FrancoSud's capital plan, is that the current site in Reunion has not been approved by Alberta Education yet – likely because of a higher-than-average natural occurrence of Arsenic.
However, FrancoSud's capital plan states census data from 2016 proved that Airdrie's Francophone population was too large for École francophone d'Airdrie, which has an enrolment capacity of 525 students. That census data showed "there were 622 school-age children with a parent whose first language learned and still understood was French, and an additional 305 school-age children who spoke French regularly at home."
While portables have worked until now, FrancoSud also pointed out that the City's zoning laws prohibit École francophone d'Airdrie from adding more modular classrooms to ease the space crunch.
Our newsroom has reported several times in recent months that Airdrie's population boom has led to a space crunch at some of Rocky View Schools' Airdrie-based schools. Perhaps having a Francophone high school in town could relieve some of those enrolment pressures, if French-speaking students currently in the public school system were eager to transfer to a Francophone school to see out their high-school years.
