Now that a few weeks have passed since the announcement of changes coming to many local schools, Rocky Views Schools (RVS) is doing its best to help every family asking questions about their kid's schooling future. 

With changes on the way for 17 RVS schools, more parents have shared their concerns about all the changes. RVS Board Chair Fiona Gilbert shared the main concerns they have heard from parents so far.

"One of the biggest concerns I have seen is that some parents who maybe didn't think they were going to be impacted, will be now." 

When RVS first started the process of balancing the student spaces, these were the three main options:

  • Converting C.W. Perry School into a high school. This will redistribute Grade 9 -12 students across Airdrie. C.W. Perry was chosen because of its location in the city and ability to accommodate high school-level programming in its spaces.

  • Grade 8 students stay in their current school for Grade 9, creating a more traditional Grade 10 - 12 high school model. This minimizes the changes for families as students stay in their schools for one more year; however, it impacts the programming options our Grade 9 students currently have and increases space pressures in some schools by adding a grade. It may also require adding or removing a grade level at some other schools.

  • Re-organize grade structures across Airdrie schools to remove urgent pressures where possible (Kindergarten – Grade 6, Grade 7 – 9 and Grade 10 – 12). This addresses both high school utilization and standardizes grade configuration across the community.

Here are the changes that are on the way for some Airdrie schools starting in the fall of the 2025-26 school year.

AirdrieScreenshot provided by RVS.

"It is a shock factor. I've been through it with my own family, and I do understand it from a parent's perspective. I do know that our staff are very empathetic and very understanding and will work hard with the families impacted to make sure that there is transition support for the students who are impacted."

Gilbert believes these changes have the best impact possible to help students receive the learning support they need. One of the main reasons to make these changes was to help high schools with how full they are.

"All three high schools being well over 100 per cent utilization and no high school being built for at least five years best case scenario.  If you're adjusting grade configurations at the high school level, of course, there's a downstream impact that will affect all the other schools.

After hearing all the input from parents during open houses and surveys before the changes were set in stone, the board of trustees felt this option affecting almost all the schools did make the most sense in the long run.

"It will continue to be a process for families and students to sort of wrap their heads around it and we get that."

Back in March, the province announced more schools for Airdrie, this will also help alleviate how full some schools will be when they are ready to go hopefully by 2027 or 2028.

If Airdrie continues to grow at the rate, Gilbert mentioned changes like this could happen again if needed (which won't be for quite a few years). Airdrie's student population grows by 300-500 students each year.

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