One day after tabling their Provincial Budget, the Alberta Government announced several Capital Projects for schools across the Province.

Unfortunately, despite the rapid growth in Rocky View Schools, the Division was not on that list, which is disappointing to the board of trustees.

RVS Trustees are looking for answers to why the Division was not in the latest Capital Projects announcement from the Government.

Board Chair Todd Brand was hoping for new schools in the area after the government announced increased spending for education in the budget.

“There’s a lot of good news on a Provincial and a Divisional basis when it came to the Budget but when it comes to the Capital side, we definitely feel that we needed to see at least two or three approvals for Rocky View Schools.”

Brand said that the biggest needs for the Division are in Langdon and Chestermere which is expected to be at or above capacity by 2020.

He said many schools in RVS are in desperate need of new infrastructure.

“With no announcement this year we’re seeing, for example in the City of Airdrie, we’re looking at four years now of only one school being opened in the City of Airdrie. We need a new school opening every single year in Airdrie in order to meet the demand of 600 students new growth every single year. That is simply not happening.”

The RVS Board is already in talks with the Ministry of Education to hopefully receive answers as to why RVS wasn’t on their projects list.

“We’ve been trying to make connections, myself personally, trying to connect with the Minister’s Office. Trying to get an explanation, we thought maybe perhaps there are some other requests that will come out in other announcements.”

The last school approved for Rocky View Schools was the new Hillcrest School, which broke ground last month and will be open in the Fall of 2019.

 

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