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being proactive

Wild Rose School Division contemplating future of schools in Drayton Valley

Aug 31, 2019 | 3:18 PM

The Wild Rose School Division is looking to stay ahead of the curve in planning for the future of its facilities in Drayton Valley.

At its August 20 meeting, the school board passed a motion to inform Alberta Education of a number of options they see as potentially necessary in the years ahead with respect to the number of schools in the town.

The issues at hand are low utilization rates and declining enrollment coupled with aging infrastructure, according to Superintendent Brad Volkman.

“Alberta Education does provide us with their projections for future enrollment, but right now all over Alberta, it tends to be stagnant or reducing,” he says. “In Drayton Valley, if we can hold where we’re at right now, that would be fine, but we would still be underutilizing our buildings.”

The government’s expectation is 90 per cent utilization, a mark the division is not meeting, and would only be further off once the new Evergreen School opens.

Among the board’s ideas are to modernize Frank Maddock High School and find a better way to utilize the new Evergreen School’s capacity of 400, rather than the 250 it’s planned to have when it opens.

Also on their radar include issues with the pad underneath the only decade-old H.W. Pickup School, which has caused cracks to form in the walls from the ground expanding upwards. Additionally, the portables at Eldorado School are nearing the end of their use, Volkman notes.

“If we would have to eventually close H.W. Pickup School, and let’s say we do end up closing Eldorado School, and those are things we have been talking about, especially Eldorado because it’s quite a bit older, it would be quite a big deal,” admits Volkman.

“That’s not something we figured we would have to do, and we still might not, but we want to start thinking about potential planning so if that did happen, what would we do?”

Volkman says an assessment of H.W. Pickup was done this summer and all necessary repairs were made to ensure the building is safe.

In 2017-18, the division ran a $400,000 deficit in its plant operations and maintenance department thanks to scenarios like this, Volkman explains, where enrollment goes down, as does the provincial maintenance grant which is given on a per student basis. Meantime, buildings still have be maintained at the same rate.

Volkman says if anyone in the school community has questions, they can contact him at 403-845-3376.