The chair of Calgary’s public school board said that sites are ready to go for new school builds, a cash infusion is what’s needed to move them forward.

Patricia Bolger, chair of the CBE board of trustees, told reporters after a news conference on Wednesday morning that Calgary’s public schools have an immediate need for thousands of new learning spaces to accommodate the rising student population.

“We have more than 3000 students who are overflowed outside of their designated schools. That’s a lot of busses on the road, a lot of bus drivers, a lot of time spent for families who are attending school not in their neighbourhoods,” she said.

“We welcome and accept each and every student into our schools, from your future Rhodes Scholars who speak three languages to our 40,000 English and English as an additional language learners. We accept everybody and we need this space.”

Bolger’s comments come after Premier Danielle Smith announced that the province will bolster the K-12 capital budget to around $8.6 billion to fast-track school builds over the next three years. Around 50,000 new student spaces will be built over the next three years and another 150,000 new spaces will be built over the next four years after that, Smith said.

The program will also fund new student spaces in non-profit private schools as well as charter schools, Smith said. However, she did not say how much of the $8.6 billion will go to discounted spaces for private schools but said charter schools will get an additional 12,500 spaces.

“We’re putting it out there as a pilot to see if there is any interest in partnering on the same basis that we’ll be building the other schools with the different school boards,” she said.

Premier Smith added the government decided to announce the funding now instead of over the years because of population growth of an “acute nature.”

“We have done our best to accommodate [the new students] on the infrastructure that we have … I’ve asked [Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides] to define a new model for how we would be able to fund infrastructure,” she said.

“It’s really was just the unique circumstances of 2023 with so many people coming in at once. That’s the highest level of people moving to Calgary that we’ve seen in our history. That’s part of the reason we have to respond to the pressures of managing growth.”

Smith also said the province will look into a new per-student funding model to accommodate for inflationary pressures, rising costs and higher student populations. Currently, the government uses a weighted-moving-average funding formula to determine funding per public school student while private schools get around 70 per cent of the operational grants.

Premier Smith said more details about the new per-student funding model will be released in February.

“We did announce some additional operational funding over the summer. So we have funding for more modules, but we also have funding to be able to manage growth pressures, and we’re working now on identifying if we need to modify our funding model,” she said.

“The model was working for us when we had to define enrollment, defining the population, and it works for defining school boards, because it’s a three-year weighted average, and it’s to protect school boards if they don’t end up with dramatic reduction, but this huge surge is not as responsive as we needed to be for enrolment growth.”

New schools a priority for CBE

The CBE said it is prioritizing 26 new construction and major modernization projects, according to the Three-Year School Capital Plan 2025-2028, which was approved in March this year.

This includes 14 new schools and one major modernization project in Year 1, which will see an additional 11,400 spaces and will cost more than $400 million. In Year 2, the CBE plans to build two new schools and modernize two existing schools which will cost around $55.5 million for 1,500 new spaces.

Six new schools and two modernization projects are slated for Year 3, which will cost around $185.5 million.

In total, the Three-Year School Capital Plan will cost more than $641 million over the next three years and will add 18,000 new spaces for CBE students.

“We have the sites ready to go to build the new schools. We just need the funds to move forward with them,” Bolger said.

“Most new communities do have a site established, and we work with the city or the developer to make sure it is site ready as fast as possible to get it built so that new families can attend.”

She added that the northeast and southeast quadrants are experiencing the biggest population growths.

“The biggest population growth is in the northeast of Calgary, so we need schools in the northeast and also in the southeast … We have children attending who are overflowed and they might not even have a school in their community. Even if you’re attending a school in your community, you might be overflowed,” she said.

Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said 30 new schools will be built across Alberta each year starting in Budget 2025. Ninety new schools will be constructed by Budget 2027 in communities with the greatest need.

“These 90 new schools will serve our public, separate and Francophone school boards. Given the incredibly high utilization rates in Calgary and Edmonton metropolitan region, these communities will see a significant number of new projects,” he said.

The minister also said the province will fund modernization projects for existing spaces starting in Budget 2025. Around 580 spaces will be modernized each year over the next three years, which will total to around 16,600 updated spaces. However, rural communities will be prioritized for the funding.

“This will ensure that students outside of our high-growth communities also benefit from new and modern spaces,” Nicolaides said.

Schools required to come up with a plan: Alberta government

Minister Nicolaides said the government made changes to its school capital approval process to help streamline the process. Currently, the government is using a “gated approval process” and projects only move forward to the next stage during the province’s annual budget cycle. Through the School Construction Acceleration Program, schools will be able to move into the next stage at any time of the year.

“I asked our school boards to work with Alberta education and their respective municipalities to move projects forward as quickly as possible. The faster you can complete the planning and design work, the faster your project can begin construction,” the education minister said.

“I know that there is a lot of work to come, but I am confident that this new program will keep up with historic levels of student growth in Alberta.

“We know this program will be bothered by municipalities and our education departments … And just to reiterate to our school boards and municipalities, please work together to ensure your priority sites are permitted service and ready for construction.”

Premier Smith said school boards have been asked to come up with capital plans for years and the province decides which projects are prioritized.

“We have to be able to meet every school board with their most urgent needs in an accelerated way, and that’s what we wanted to do with this process,” she said.

“But it’s always been the case that the school boards that have led the effort, we just have had to be a lot more strict because of budget limitations.”