St. Albert’s Catholic board says it’ll pull out of an almost 50-year-old school site agreement with the city unless it gets a north-side school site.
Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools superintendent David Keohane sent a letter to the City of St. Albert, the St. Albert Public School board and the Greater North Central Francophone school board late last month saying that the Catholic board wished to withdraw from the city’s school site allocation agreement.
The deal, which dates back to 1966, governs how the city decides who gets which site for a new school, and was just updated in February.
Public board superintendent Barry Wowk spoke of the recently received letter at the St. Albert Public board meeting Wednesday. The board had been asked to sign off on the new deal.
“The site allocation committee works well when there are enough (school) sites,” Wowk said, but St. Albert has received four new schools in just two years. That’s led to disputes over which board gets what site.
“Our sister district feels the agreement doesn’t quite live up to the current changes.”
Under the terms of the agreement, boards must serve notice of their intention to leave the deal by April 1 of any year and delay their departure until Aug. 31, Keohane said in an interview.
The current school site dispute centres on the placement of the Catholic board’s new 400-student K-to-9 school. While that school is slated for construction in Erin Ridge North in a few years, the city has not allocated the Catholic board a school site in that part of town.
While the board does have an open site in Oakmont, Keohane said it makes no sense to put a new school in Oakmont, as it would simply drain students from Neil M. Ross.
“Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools wants to be able to have site in an area structure plan where growth is taking place.”
Keohane said the Catholic board wants to stay in the agreement and has confidence that a deal is possible. The board is open to either getting a portion of a site in one of these new-growth areas or building a joint-use school with another board, one that could share gyms or other facilities.
But if a deal isn’t reached by Aug. 31, the board will leave the agreement.
Keohane said he had signalled the board’s intent to leave the site allocation agreement to compel discussion of this issue.
“It’s about honouring the agreement,” he said, one principle of which says there should be a “balance” of school jurisdiction presence in St. Albert.
The city has three unallocated school sites in area structure plans currently in the works along its borders, said city manager Patrick Draper: one in Riverside, one in Jensen Lakes, and one in Avenir. It needs to find spots for two new elementary schools – one public, one Catholic.
“The challenge in this is the timing when some of those sites will be available,” he said – the sites aren’t fully serviced yet, and the city’s new schools are supposed to be built within a few years.
Should the Catholic board withdraw from this agreement, Draper said the city could either negotiate a new site allocation deal with the three boards or go back to the old system of letting the city’s director of planning decide who got which site.
Draper said he would consult with council in the coming days to determine the city’s position in this dispute. The school site committee was set to meet later this month.
The public board deferred signing the school site agreement until a later date.
