The provincial government announced plans to modernize a number of schools in Alberta’s two largest cities Tuesday.
Provincial Education Minister Jeff Johnson made the announcement at the Alberta School for the Deaf, outlining the nine modernization projects slated for the Edmonton area.
Under the plan, a number of Edmonton schools will see improvements, with a few of those schools being consolidated into single facilities.
Sarah Hoffman, chair of the Edmonton Public School Board said upgrades for many of the older schools in the city are needed.
“I remember one board meeting asking the facilities manager the state of some of our boiler systems,” Hoffman said. “He said, ‘I’m going to be honest sometimes I stay up at night thinking about them’.
“Tonight he’ll rest much easier.”
The province announced Vimy Ridge School, Ross Sheppard High School, Louis St. Laurent Junior/Senior High School, J.H. Picard School, Belgravia School, Archbishop O’Leary High School and the Alberta School for the Deaf were all slated for modernization, or extensive renovation.
In addition, the province said a number of schools would be consolidated – officials said St. Brendan and St. Kevin Schools in Edmonton would be consolidated, in addition to a replacement school for 450 students, involving three or more schools – those schools were not specifically named.
The upgrades are expected to range from updating mechanical and electrical systems, to improving building exteriors and modifying classrooms – some renovations expected to improve accessibility, in addition to improvements to safety and security systems.
Nine other projects in Calgary were also announced Tuesday.
The announcements are part of the province’s plan to upgrade or build 120 schools in Alberta; those projects have been outlined on the provincial government’s website.
No dollar figure was given for Tuesday’s announcement, the Education Minister said the province was keeping numbers under wraps going into the tendering process.
“We don’t want to forecast what we are tendering out, how much it will cost, because we don’t want them to come in higher than they need to,” Johnson said. “So we’d like to hold those numbers close to the chest.”
Johnson called the projects ‘significant modernizations’ that would cost “in excess of a couple hundred million dollars.”
The minister also said Tuesday’s announcement was not the last surrounding new and upgraded schools in Alberta – saying the province was going to have a total of 120 projects announced by the end of February.
With files from Nicole Weisberg
