COCHRANE— Rocky View Schools has confirmed it will be receiving funding for modular classrooms to ease some of the space concerns emerging in the growing school division.
On May 21, the government approved funding for 16 new modular classrooms and the relocation of nine units in the Rocky View School Division.
Although Rocky View Schools has been advocating for permanent additions to schools, particularly at Bow Valley High School, the modular classrooms are a helpful addition to Cochrane’s schools, said Rocky View Schools superintendent Greg Luterbach.
“The use of modular classrooms, or portables as they are often called as well, are one of the strategies to be able to support student accommodation,” Luterbach said. “While we would love permanent additions and new schools, the reality and the government’s strategy is that modulars play a part in student accommodations across the province and not just in Rocky View.”
In Cochrane, Bow Valley High School and Manachaban Middle School will be seeing additional classroom spaces.
Six existing modular classrooms will be moved to Bow Valley High School, while Manachaban will have three units moved to the school grounds and another two brand-new modular classrooms will be installed at the middle school.
One of the units being moved to Manachaban is a bathroom unit, which means the development permit process is handled by the contractors responsible for moving it and not Rocky View Schools.
“Given the fact that some of these are relocations, so we’re not waiting for a contractor to physically build them, and we’ve got development permits already, we were anticipatory on that, we would say Bow Valley High School's total of six modulars being moved over there will likely be ready kind of around that September, October timeline,” he said. “The Manachaban two existing, two new and hard to say what will happen with the bathroom unit, kind of an end of October timeline for that one.”
The new units will likely arrive in the fall, and should be ready sometime in 2021, while the relocation of the existing units will be scheduled as soon as permits and timing allow, but should also be ready for the upcoming school year.
A permanent extension has long been at the top of Rocky View Schools list of priorities for the school district.
In March, when the government announced that Rocky View Schools had none of its capital projects approved for funding, Board of Trustees chair Fiona Gilbert said the expansion of Bow Valley High School had been on their radar for nearly 20 years.
“Bow Valley High was built about 20 years ago, and at that time it was built only as half a school. We knew at that point that we would need further development there,” she said in an interview with The Eagle. “It’s been at the top of our capital plan as our top priority for two or three years now.”
Bow Valley High School is currently at 100 per cent capacity and is projected to be at 108 per cent capacity in September of this year.
Rocky View School’s request included additional modular classroom spaces at Fireside School as well.
Despite the Alberta Government greatly expanding its modular classroom funding in the 2021 Capital Budget, the request was denied for the additional spaces at Fireside.
“Even with the additional $60 more million dollars in the pot this year, the bar to get modulars remains very high. They’re not looking at schools at 95 per cent and saying they need them. If they’re at 95 this year and even if they look like they’re going to be at 100 a year after, it didn’t look like we got any consideration for a multi-year approach— It really was dealing with emergent 100 per cent utilization issues only for next year,” Luterbach said.
He added that the modular classrooms typically can accommodate 25 students per unit, but the reality is that more than 25 students will be attending class in each space.
All told, the additional units will allow for roughly 400 to 500 additional seats for students.
