Skip to content

New schools in P3 mode

A new financing model will be used to build and maintain 13 new schools, including four approved for Red Deer and the surrounding region.

A new financing model will be used to build and maintain 13 new schools, including four approved for Red Deer and the surrounding region.

Alberta Education announced on Thursday the names of three teams invited to submit proposals for the P3 (public private partnerships) project, with the winning submission to design, build and maintain the schools in consultation with the province and the boards that will operate them.

The new funding model, termed Alberta School Alternate Procurement III, has been used in Calgary and Edmonton and is now being extended to the Hwy 2 corridor, said Ken Jaeger, superintendent of support services for the Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools board.

“These three firms that they’ve shortlisted to will be going through the process of designing, building, financing and maintaining these 13 schools . . . for the next 30 years.”

Three teams of private contractors selected to compete for the project are ABC Schools Group, Alberta Consortium for Education and Build to Learn3.

Red Deer Catholic has been approved for a new kindergarten to Grade 5 school in Clearview Ridge, just south of 67th Street at the northeast corner of the city, said Jaeger.

The new Catholic school is slated for completion in the spring of 2014 with the first students to move in that fall. It will be started with a capacity of 300 students and expand later to 500, said Jaeger.

The Red Deer Public School District has received approval for a Timberlands pre-kindergarten to Grade 5 elementary school on the east side of the point at which 67th Street turns into 30th Avenue.

Superintendent Piet Langstraat said the school will open in 2014 to 500 students and can later be expanded through the use of modular classrooms to accommodate 600 students.

The single-storey, 37,250-square-foot Timberlands school is being planned with a gymnasium and food preparation area that can be rented out for community events, and it will feature a recycling room, and a semi-circular public library branch that will also serve students.

Langstraat likened it to the Dawe Centre. “We’re very excited about the public component.”

Other new schools approved include a middle school in Penhold for Chinook’s Edge, and a K-12 school in Red Deer for the Greater North Central Francophone Education Region.

The Edmonton-based francophone board is negotiating with the City of Red Deer for a designated school site in Anders, near 30th Avenue and 22nd Street. The school will replace the current Ecole La Prairie, which serves K-11 students in a very old school building near Kin Canyon (formerly the Piper Creek School). The new school will have an opening capacity for 250 students, with room to expand to accommodate 350.

The team that wins the tender will work with each of the school boards to design their buildings and select materials and will then be responsible for building repairs and maintenance, with those costs to be covered by the province, said Jaeger.

The schools boards will then be left to staff the schools and fill them with students.

How well that will work is yet to be seen, he said.

The province expects to gain some savings through the economies of scale available by having a single contractor build and maintain a large number of schools, said Jaeger.

The ASAP III funding proposal will relieve school boards of the costs of major repairs, but Jaeger questions whether repairs and major maintenance will be completed in a timely fashion.

Langstraat said different opinions exist on the government’s P3 process, “but from our board’s perspective, we’re thankful to get the school. However it’s acquired, at the end of the day we will get a badly needed school in Red Deer.”

lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com

bkossowan@www.reddeeradvocate.com