New schools in the city’s northeast quadrant are part of the Red Deer Public School District’s plans.
This week, the board of trustees approved its revised three-year 2013-2016 capital plan, which includes a new elementary and high school in Garden Heights, the undeveloped area just north west of Timberlands, and a middle school in the Timber Ridge neighbourhood, south east of Timberlands.
School districts must submit a wish list of new construction and modernization requests to the province by April.
The public district’s capital plan has remained mostly unchanged for several years. The approval of a new kindergarten to Grade 5 school in Timberlands, opening in 2014, has meant the board can adjust the list.
The transfer of the River Glen School building from Chinook’s Edge School Division to the public jurisdiction is the district’s first priority. The Gateway Christian School program would operate out of the site. This has been on the board’s request list for several years. Chinook’s Edge is replacing River Glen with a new school in Penhold.
Two schools in the Garden Heights area are needed because projected growth in the northeast quadrant of the city and the continued growth in the younger grades. Red Deer Public predicts a new high school will also be needed in the same area, said board chairman Lawrence Lee,. A new middle school with Grades 6 to 8 is requested in the Timber Ridge neighbourhood, south east of Timberlands.
“It’s like we’re always one school behind all the time,” said Lee. “If time, money, resources weren’t an issue, we would have two schools opening when Timberlands open with a K-5 configuration.”
Mechanical and electrical systems upgrades are part of the modernization projects requested at Annie L. Gaetz Elementary School and Westpark Middle School.
Glendale School needs an upgrade for its Career Technology Studies programming and mechanical and functional system upgrades.
crhyno@www.reddeeradvocate.com