Province to fund 2 new Edmonton Catholic schools, Edmonton Public pitch turned down

Alberta’s 2022 provincial budget will fund the construction of two new Catholic schools in the Edmonton area, but there is no funding to build new Edmonton Public schools.

One of the new Catholic schools will be a high school built in the city’s Castle Downs neighbourhood. The other is slated to be a combined elementary and junior high school in the Lewis Farms area.

“We’re extremely thankful … and relieved for today’s announcement,” said Sandra Palazzo with Edmonton Catholic Schools.

“[They are] critically needed to ease significant enrollment pressures in north and west Edmonton.”

Palazzo noted a new high school was especially needed in north Edmonton, where she said capacity limits had forced some classes to nearby junior high schools.

“This is the only sector of the city without a Catholic high school. As a result, Archbishop O’Leary is operating over capacity.”

Edmonton Public Schools Board Chair Trisha Estabrooks said she was “disappointed and a little miffed” at Friday’s announcement.

“Our space crunch is heightened,” she said. “It means larger class sizes. It means larger bus ride times. It means more schools having to go through a lottery process. It means greater uncertainty.”

Estabrooks added Edmonton Public schools are operating at 80 per cent capacity but could be “completely out of space in all of our schools” by 2027.

Education Minister Adriana LaGrange said her ministry rejected a pitch from Edmonton Public to replace an existing facility in the Delton neighbourhood.

“The top ask was a school that only has about 69 per cent utilization and no health and safety issues,” she told reporters Friday.

“So, I’m very concerned about that, and I’m instructing my department to work with Edmonton school division to look at their prioritization of projects.”

Estabrooks said the Delton facility needs upgrading and that the province could be clearer in how it makes funding decisions.

“If the province was funding schools based on enrollment pressure, there was no shortage of those schools on our lists,” she said.

The new Edmonton schools are part of around 15 education infrastructure projects announced as part of Budget 2022, which will see five new schools built and four others modernized.

Two of the new schools will be in Calgary: a middle school in Evanston and a K-9 school in Legacy.

Modernization projects are slated for Acme, Evansburg, Cochrane and Milk River as is a new high school in Camrose.

Other projects include a replacement school in Manning; a water main repair at St. Francis of Assisi School in Slave Lake and design funding for schools in Sherwood Park, Raymond, Penhold and Valleyview. 

With files from Dave Dormer