Achi news desk-
The parent council of a Calgary school has launched an online petition over concerns that the facility will not be able to withstand unprecedented enrollment growth.
Valley Creek School, located on Hidden Valley Drive, serves students in Grades 4 to 9 and has a total of 755 students listed on the CBE website (as of September 30).
Valley Creek School Parent Council member Shelley Wiart has launched an online petition calling on Calgary-Beddington MLA Amanda Chapman to lobby Alberta’s UCP government for improved educational funding, among other requests.
“We are forced to address urgent issues that seriously affect the quality of our students’ education,” said Wiart in the petition, which was launched on behalf of the parents’ council.
“Our communities are experiencing unprecedented enrollment growth, significantly increasing class sizes and straining our resources.”
Wiart says this year alone, the school expanded its boundaries to include the newly developed neighborhood of Ambleton, yet the expansion “was not met with a corresponding increase in funding or capital infrastructure.”
“Our schools are vibrant hubs with students speaking over 40 languages. Many of these students are English as an Additional Language (EAL) learners who arrived without the ability to speak English. Yet the provision of resources necessary learning as Teaching Assistants (TAs) has not kept pace with this complexity. As a result, the school board’s ability to provide a high-quality educational experience is compromised.”
The petition also urges Chapman to push the UCP to upgrade infrastructure, support for mental health and for public funds to be dedicated entirely to public education rather than being diverted to private and charter schools.
For more information about the petition, you can go to Change.org.
North Way High School Concerns
The petition comes as concerns have also been raised about a brand new high school nearby in Calgary which is already predicted to be over capacity.
Calgary North Route High School is located on Harvest Hills Boulevard, just seven kilometers away from Valley Creek School.
The North Path opened to Grade 10 and 11 students for the 2023-24 school year, and the Grade 12 students are expected to be welcomed for the 2024-25 school year.
However, a letter on the CBE website states that it is already predicted that the North Way will be over capacity for the 2024-25 school year, and will not be able to accommodate all the new students who live within a designated boundary the school.
Instead, the CBE says overflow will be directed to Crescent Heights High School, 16 kilometers away.
One parent told CTV News she wasn’t too shocked.
“We claimed from the beginning that this school will be full the day it opens,” said Tamara Keller.
“We’ve had a couple of decades where we haven’t been building schools at the rate we need.”
According to the Calgary Board of Education website, North Trail High School has a capacity of 1,800 students and is intended to serve the communities of Coventry Hills, Country Hills, Country Hills Village, Harvest Hills, Panorama Hills and Hidden Valley.
And this is not the only facility that is overflowing.
More than 30 CBE schools are listed as overcapacity, as the board has brought in 13,000 students in the past two years.
That’s enough to fill more than 22 schools — but there was only full construction funding for one in the last provincial budget.
More are expected eventually, but the process is long and sometimes published builds are never completed.
“Originally there was a school (North Trail High) on the capital plan 20 years ago when we bought our home in 2006,” Keller said. “Now, there are two more secondary schools north of (Northern Route) on the capital plan. My advice would be to start advocating now if you don’t want to relive what we went through.”
Provincial response
Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides says additional help is coming, but would not commit to anything beyond the UCP government’s latest budget.
“We recognize that there is exceptional pressure and we are working as best we can to increase funding to the right areas,” Nicolaides said.
“We are fully committed to maintaining expenditure that is in line with our revenue. We don’t want to put ourselves in the position where we start spending in deficit to be able to meet our operational needs as a province.”
Nicolaides also drew attention to the fact that the province is currently spending more on the file than ever before.
But advocates argue that this is a bad faith argument – and that a quality education is more important than any defect.
“Alberta is the lowest funded student in all of Canada and we’re still growing,” said Medeana Moussa with Help Our Students. “Our schools are overcrowded and students are not getting the first class education that we value.
“None of (the province’s) investment has really matched that need.”
