With a large portion of the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) schools aging beyond their intended lifespan, the board has a large backlog of infrastructure catchup.
The lucky schools that did receive a modernization might have only got a portion of the work they needed.
According to a report shared during the June 23 CBE Board of Trustees meeting, many CBE-owned schools are nearing the end of their 50-70 year lifespan.
While infrastructure upgrades are entirely possible, many older school buildings are not up to today’s standards, according to the document.
For example, 60 per cent of CBE schools are not fully accessible for persons with disabilities and aged Career and Technology Studies laboratories often are not able to meet modern educational needs, as they are unable to keep pace with rapidly evolving technology, the report read. The cost to make every school fully accessible is not known by the board.
The board has a current backlog of 124 schools that are beyond their 50-year design life and have not received a major modernization.
Trustee Nancy Close, who represents Wards 11 and 13, said that the backlog dates back decades.
“They chose to bus versus build, and so we were behind when I was previously a school board trustee, in having the facilities that we needed in the 90s and the early 2000s,” she said during the meeting.
The report says that with the current pace of school aging, with 26 more schools expected to surpass 50 years old over the next decade, CBE should be receiving an average of 2.6 existing school modernizations or replacements) just to keep pace.
“Industry best practice dictates an average annual investment (M&R plus major recapitalization) of approximately one per cent to two per cent of the construction replacement value to maintain the condition of a commercial facility portfolio,” the report reads.
“With the estimated replacement value of CBE schools sitting at $7.4B (excludes P3 maintained and Charter occupied schools, which are maintained through alternate funding streams), CBE should be investing $74M – $148M per year.”
Over the last 10 years the CBE has received an average of $37.3M per year in M&R, or Maintenance and Renewal, grants and $16.6M per year in major capital projects for existing schools, for a total annual investment of roughly $53.9M per year, according to the report.
“With the recent elimination of the Infrastructure Maintenance & Renewal (IMR) grant and modest increases to the Operation & Maintenance (O&M) and Capital Maintenance & Renewal (CMR) grants, the M&R budget has effectively been reduced by a little over $8M, dropping the annual investment for 2026-27 even further below this level,” it reads.
Significant portions of schools left untouched under previous rules
Up until 2024, when the Annie Gale School modernization project was approved, funding levels for modernization projects were set before Planning or Design was complete during initial approval.
This fixed model resulted in projects that only partially addressed the full requirement, with large sections of schools left untouched even after modernization, according to the report.
When discussing this information during the meeting, Trustee Susan Vukadinovic asked if schools who’d previously received modernizations could be reconsidered for more upgrades.
CBE Superintendent of Facilities and Environmental Services, Dany Breton, said that there is nothing that might prevent the submission, but these schools may not be highly prioritized.
“Because of the fact that we have invested money already, it would reduce their overall priority,” he said during the meeting.
