Premier Danielle Smith has unveiled an ambitious school building plan to help ease the pressure caused by the population boom by creating 50,000 student spaces over the next three years.
The School Development Accelerator program, announced by Smith in a televised address across the province Tuesday night, will cost $8.6 billion over three years. It adds $6.5 billion to the previously announced $2.1 billion.
Smith said the plan aims to create an additional 150,000 student study spaces in four years after an initial three-year boost, for a total of 200,000 over seven years.
“This is truly the fastest and largest development our province can manage considering the available construction workforce capacity and the time required to permit, prepare and repair the available school sites,” Smith said.
Smith said cabinet recently approved funding for schools in Calgary, Edmonton, Barrhead, Breton Mallaig, Redcliff, Taber and Wainwright. He did not provide details on how many schools would be built or whether they would be built through public-private partnerships.
He also did not say how Alberta planned to recruit additional teachers. His remarks were pre-recorded and Smith was returning from a government trip to the United States on Tuesday.
Many schools in Alberta, particularly in Edmonton and Calgary, are already at or above capacity. Smith said more than 200,000 people are expected to move to the province by 2023.
Smith said the system adds 33,000 students, or the equivalent of 35 new schools, each year.
Smith said people are coming to the province for jobs and low taxes. But he blamed the federal Liberal government for upsetting the delicate balance with its “uncontrolled open border policy.”
In a memo released last week, the Edmonton Public Schools board advocacy committee said the district is adding about 5,000 students each year, enough to fill two new high schools.
Watch| Premier of Alberta announces School Building Accelerator Program:
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her government will drastically increase spending on building new schools — both public and private. In a televised address Tuesday night, Smith pledged to increase funding for new schools to $8.6 billion over the next three years. She will also offer a new incentive program to help private schools build more space for students. As Janet French explains, population growth has put pressure on schools.
The memo added that the division will lose its high school capacity in 2027, but the province is providing funding for a K-9 school in the 2022-23 school year. Edmonton Public Schools is Alberta’s second-largest division.
The accelerator funds will also allow the province to purchase specialized modular classrooms to accommodate 20,000 new students while new schools are built, Smith said.
Smith’s plan would also add 12,500 spaces in charter schools over the next four years. There are currently about 12,000 Alberta students in charter schools and the plan would create space to double that number.
The government is developing a pilot school capital program for private, for-profit schools. Smith said the program would “incentivize investment in the creation of thousands of new independent school spaces at a lower cost per student to taxpayers.”
Smith wants the school board and the city to work together to get these projects started as soon as possible. He asked the city to make new schools a “top priority.”
“Cut the red tape,” he said. “Provide licensing and services for public, Catholic, charter and private schools. We must all work together on this effort.”
The Prime Minister should see a surge in registrations: Nenshi
Speaking to reporters in Calgary, NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said the government was making cross-generational investments in schools, but only in response to a crisis they should have seen coming.
“The prime minister can be all he wants to be shocked,” he said. “We all know this is happening. Teachers know. Parents know. Students know. Anyone who’s paying attention knows this is what’s happening in our schools.”
Nenshi said announcing and building these projects on an accelerated schedule would increase construction costs, due to inflation, and drain resources from builders who also need to build affordable housing.
He said Smith appeared to have no plan to hire the teachers needed to fill the new schools. He also criticized the administration for planning to direct public funds to private schools.
Dennis MacNeil, president of the Alberta Public School Boards Association, and a trustee at Aspen View Public Schools, said he was pleased with the scale of the announcement, but like Nenshi, he was disappointed the government was allocating some of the money from the public school system.
He said the first school in every community should be a public school because they accept all students.
“This government is crazy about charter schools and private schools,” MacNeil said.
“What will happen if we’re not careful is that the public school system will become a temporary shelter and a kind of second-class citizen in education.”
Smith was not available to answer questions about the plan after his speech. He will appear at a news conference in Calgary Wednesday morning with Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides and Infrastructure Minister Pete Guthrie. and chair of the Calgary Board of Education and Edmonton Public Schools.
