Although local MLA Colin Piquette had some words for Aspen View School Division trustees regarding inclusiveness in the process, he stated he is in favour of the new school project.
“I’m in favour of the school the community wants,” said Piquette at Aspen’s Sept. 17 meeting in Athabasca.
“I’ve said since the beginning, that my own personal opinion on the school, I don’t think (it’s) really relevant to it.”
Piquette came to the school board meeting on Thursday to discuss some of the issues surrounding funding and, of course, the new school. Schematic drawings for the new Athabasca secondary school have been submitted to Alberta Infrastructure and are awaiting approval.
“We wanted to come and just hear what you had to say about the new school,” said Carmen Jensen, a parent council member who sat in the meeting. “Unfortunately, I think (that EPC) has given us it’s all and it probably gave it last year.
“I know you have been getting some voices about possibly not this school. (However,) I think there’s a general consensus that yes, this school is required and perhaps it’s just the location that is under scrutiny.”
Up until this point, Piquette hasn’t stated his opinion on the new school publicly as it’s been quite a “contentious” issue.
“We’ve had 300 letters or so, concerned about the location and the question, of course, of the whole process,” he said. “However, on the location of the school, itself, that’s really a local concern. That’s a decision of the school board.”
On the other hand, he had quite a few things to say about the process, which he believed could have used more inclusivity earlier on.
“I think that if at the beginning of the process, you’d been more inclusive then, I think there’d been less controversy now than what there is,” he explained.
“That’s just maybe some advice going forward for the next project. The more inclusive you are in the beginning, the less problem you’re going to have at the end.”
Aspen Board chair Dennis MacNeil disagreed with Piquette’s comments, stating there had been quite a lot of input from the community.
“From the very beginning, with the value scoping exercise, community consultation was a part of that process. As we moved forward, at every step, there was community consultation,” he said.
“Sometimes, you can provide them with the information (and) sometimes that information doesn’t go through.”
In terms of funding, Piquette seemed to agree that the funding formula didn’t work properly for rural communities.
Aspen View Supt. Mark Francis explained: “This is one of the things that I hope the ministry can discuss. The way the funding works for school is Alberta is there’s a formula based on utilization (and) the utilization rate is very misleading.”
“I’ll use Whispering Hills Primary School as an example. It’s listed at 81 per cent utilization rate, but yet every single classroom is full and actually last year we had to drag in two portables down the highway from Boyle to meet the needs of all the classes.”
Because of the supposed low utilization rate, the schools receive less funding for maintenance. It’s a fact the division isn’t impressed with.
“We’re in a deficit situation before we turn the lights on in the school,” said Francis. “We’re in deficit before we even open school and we’re in a deficit in transportation before we even turn on the bus.”
Piquette agreed, “I can see your point. Because, it seems like the building has maintenance costs regardless of how many students are using it.”
Trustees asked Piquette to bring back their concerns to the Alberta Education and to ask them to look into the differences between urban and rural school divisions.
