Lacombe County has reaffirmed its support for a school in Mirror, but did not specifically endorse a proposal presented by Mirror Alliance Church on Thursday to create an alternate Christian school.
Wolf Creek School Division announced earlier this month that it was closing Mirror School because of declining enrolment and mounting costs.
“If our community is going to continue to grow, we need to have a school there,” Mirror Alliance Church Pastor Jim Sturgeon told Lacombe County council on Thursday.
Sturgeon said the church believes there are enough students willing to use the school to make it financially viable. He polled families of the 53 children in the area and found the parents of 38 children would use the school. Parents of 11 children were not sure and four said they wouldn’t send their children there.
“It’s actually quite positive. More positive than I thought it would be when I started,” he said.
Sturgeon believes there are other children in the area who may be wiling to attend classes at the school, which would operate as an alternate school in the Wolf Creek School Division. Alberta Education per-student funding would flow through to the school, which would also be required to follow the provincial curriculum and hire Alberta Teachers’ Association teachers.
The school would be patterned on the Strathcona Academy, an alternate school in Strathcona County that has become an academic success story and now has 1,100 students.
Sturgeon said the church believes there are some cost savings it could make to ensure the school was viable. One of the school division’s concerns is that deficits not be passed on to the division.
The church intends to approach the school division with a proposal and will seek a three-year approval with an option to renew for another three years. That will give the school time to get established and operate in the black.
The school board voted earlier this month to see what other proposals are out there for the site.
County commissioner Terry Hager said council also will notify the school division that the municipality has no immediate use for the school site. If it is not used for a school, the county wants to see it preserved for community use.
pcowley@www.reddeeradvocate.com