As officials try to come up with a solution to stalled plans to build a new public junior high school in Morinville, town council is looking to have the province step in – one member of council says that meeting has been scheduled for the following week.

On Tuesday night, Morinville Town Council met to talk about the issue – currently, plans to build a new public school in the town are stalled over an issue with the land slated for the project.

Initial plans were for the new, public, junior high school to open to students in 2017, but plans for the project were put on hold due to a disagreement over whether the piece of land is suitable for a school.

The province has certain requirements that the town has not met – and the Mayor of Morinville is asking the Education Minister to get involved.

“We feel that the site is the only option within the town limits, we own no other land, there is no other publicly accessible or available land to build a school on and this is the one we have to deal with,” Morinville Mayor Lisa Holmes said. “We have been sitting at the table, Sturgeon School Division is sitting at the table, it’s been the Government of Alberta that has left, and that’s who we need to get back and re-engage.”

The Morinville Public School Council Chair said officials are looking to move forward with the project.

“We are just looking forward to something actually happening, not months and months of meetings because we’re already 14 months behind and we’re back to square one it seems like,” Chair Sarah Hall said. “We’ve wasted over a year and we don’t have to waste any more time.”

Early Wednesday afternoon, Morinville councillor Brennan Fitzgerald tweeted that the town would meet with Minister of Education David Eggen the following week.

 

 

Morinville’s only public school is at capacity with 700 students, and they’re expecting 200 more in the next school year.

The Sturgeon School Division is bringing in nine more portables to accommodate the growing student population.

The province has told CTV News it does not intervene in such matters, and it’s up to the local council and school board to decide where the school will be built.

As for the stalled school plan, Mayor Holmes said officials are looking at options, including bringing in temporary portable buildings on the planned school site until the finished school is open.

With files from Kelsey Nichols