Last week during the first session of the 2023 fall sitting, Airdrie East MLA Angela Pitt brought up Airdrie schools during the question period at the legislature.

One of the hot topics within Airdrie is the lack of schools and how full the current schools are. MLA Pitt asked the Minister of Education, Demetrios Nicolaides what the province funded in this past budget.

"I know in the last few years, the Calgary Catholic school division received modernization funding for the St. Martin de Porres High School in Airdrie. Other projects have received approval, and we're continuing to work with our incredible MLAs to make sure we get these done," stated Micolaides

Pete Guthrie, Minister of Infrastructure and Airdrie Cochrane MLA stated three projects are currently underway in Airdrie, which were in the 2023 provincial budget, those include:

  • Construction funding for a secondary francophone school.
  • A new K-8 school in southwest Airdrie within the Rocky View School (RVS) Division was being funded for planning.
  • Airdrie was also named to the new School Planning Program for a new grades 9-12 school within RVS.

According to Guthrie, when these projects are complete in the years to come, including schools in Chestermere and Cochrane, they will serve over 5000 new students.

"Given that, even with these recent efforts from our government, there is no doubt there is still work to be done," stated Pitt.

With that being said, Nicolaides mentioned the premier has directed him to significantly expand the number of schools in Alberta's growing communities, Airdrie being one of them

"I've also spoken at length with the school division and I know that they have a number of projects that are priorities for the city of Airdrie. Their top two projects, if memory serves me correctly are for the city of Airdrie itself and we'll be working with them to move that forward," Stated Nicolaides.

Here are the top 10 priorities for RVS:

  1. Airdrie K-8 school
  2. Airdrie High school
  3. Cochrane K-8 school
  4. Chestermere K-9 school
  5. Airdrie K-8 school
  6. Springbank K-8 school
  7. Cochrane High School
  8. Airdrie K-8 school
  9. Cochrane K-8 school
  10. Crossfield K-8 school

According to RVS, in 2022/23, RVS’ overall utilization rate at all of its schools was 92 per cent. Without new schools, this will rise to 101 per cent by 2025.

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